Shloka (śloka)

A shloka is the standard verse of the Sanskrit epics, a couplet of thirty two syllables in which almost the whole Mahabharata is composed. Tradition says the form was born from Valmiki's cry of grief at a hunter killing a mating bird, so that the metre of Indian epic begins in sorrow. Vyasa is said to have composed knotted verses that only he could unravel, in order to slow Ganesha down as the god took dictation without pausing his stylus.