the tristubh, which is commonly used in the Rigveda, the earliest form of Sanskrit, has four 11-syllable lines of the following pattern (the symbol "," represents a caesura or break between words). Thus the 5th element is an anceps, which if short must be preceded by a word-break, if long it must be followed by one:
:| x - x - , u u - - u - x | or
:| x - x - - , u - - u - x |

In the high classical period of Sanskrit literature