A chhand or schand is a quatrain

Quatrain

A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...

 used in the poetic

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 traditions of North India

North India

North India, known natively as Uttar Bhārat or Shumālī Hindustān , is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage...

 and Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

.

Chhands in culture

In the culture of the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

, it is customary for chhands to be recited at ceremonial occasions such as weddings, where they are used by grooms to praise their in-laws. Formerly, the form was extensively employed by court bards to praise royal personages. Chhands are also used extensively in the Nautanki

Nautanki

Nautanki is one of the most popular folk operatic theater performance traditions of South Asia, particularly in northern India. Before the advent of Bollywood , Nautanki was the single most popular form of entertainment in the villages and towns of northern India...

dance-drama tradition of the region, especially in the alha chhand or bir chhand formats. A typical Punjabi wedding chhand might extol the mother- and father-in-law, for instance this one, which says the groom holds them in the same esteem as his own parents -

Shahmukhi	Devnagri Devanagari Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...	Transcription
چهند پراگا آ ًیے جا ًیے چهند پراگا گهیوه سس نوں منّا ماتا/امّی جی تے سوهرے جی نوں پیوه	छंद परागा आईए जाईए छंद परागा घ्योह सस नूँ मन्ना माता/अम्मी जी ते सोहरे जी नूँ प्योह	chhand paraga aiyey-jaiyey chhand paraga g(h)yoh sass nun manna mata/ammi ji te sohre ji nun pyoh

A Rajasthani language chhand, from the poem Haldighati

Haldighati

Haldighati is a mountain pass in the Aravalli Range of Rajasthan in western India. It connects Rajsamand and Pali districts, 40 kilometres from Udaipur...

by Kanhaiyalal Sethia

Kanhaiyalal Sethia

Kanhaiyalal Sethia was a well known Rajasthani and Hindi poet. He was born in Sujangarh, Churu District in the Indian state of Rajasthan. He was a passionate supporter of making Rajasthani, the mother tongue of the people of Rajasthan at the union level...

, describes Maharana Pratap's determination to fight on against the Mughal

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire ,‎ or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...

s at all costs -

Rajasthani Rajasthani language Rajasthani Rajasthani Rajasthani (Devanagari: , Perso-Arabic: is a language of the Indo-Aryan languages family. It is spoken by 50 million people in Rajasthan and other states of India and in some areas of Pakistan. The number of speakers may be up to 80 million worldwide...	Transcription	Translation
हूँ भूख मरूँ, हूँ प्यास मरूँ मेवाड़ धरा आज़ाद रहै हूँ घोर उजाड़ा में भटकूँ पण मन में माँ री याद रह्वै	hoon bhookh maroon, hoon pyaas maroon mewar dhara azaad rahai hoon ghor ujara mein bhatkoon pan man mein ma ri yaad r'hvai	Let me die of hunger, let me die of thirst Mewar Mewar Mewar is a region of south-central Rajasthan state in western India. It includes the present-day districts of Pratapgarh, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara and some of the part of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The region was for centuries a Rajput kingdom that later...  must remain free Let me wander the bleakest wildernesses But the mother(land) must always be in my thoughts

Chhands in religion

Jaap Sahib

Jaap Sahib

Jaap Sahib is the morning prayer of the Sikhs. The Prayer or Bani was composed by the tenth Sikh Master, Guru Gobind Singh. This Bani is one of 5 Banis that a Sikh must recite everyday and is recited by the Panj Pyare while preparing Amrit on the occasion of Amrit Sanchar , a ceremony held to admit...

 is the morning prayer of the Sikhs. The Prayer or Bani was composed by the tenth Sikh Master, Guru Gobind Singh

Guru Gobind Singh

Guru Gobind Singh is the tenth and last Sikh guru in a sacred lineage of ten Sikh gurus. Born in Patna, Bihar in India, he was also a warrior, poet and philosopher. He succeeded his father Guru Tegh Bahadur as the leader of Sikhs at a young age of nine...

. Jaap Sahib is made up of 199 verses

Verse (poetry)

A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....

 and is the first Bani of the Dasam Granth (p. 1-10). The Jaap Sahib begins with "Sri Mukhwakh Patshahi Dasvee," "By the holy mouth of the Tenth King." This appears to be a specific saying to authenticate the writings of Guru Gobind Singh himself.The language of Jaap, is close to classical with words and compounds drawn from Sanskrit, Brij Bhasha, Arabic and Urdu. The contents of Jaap Sahib, are divided into various Chhands bearing the name of the related meter according to the then prevalent system of prosody in India.Jaap Sahib is a total and complete introduction to a non-individual Creator, or Nature itself, or the Forces of Universe, or the Laws of Nature.

Etymology

The term is derived from the Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 word chhanda, which refers to the study of Vedic meter

Vedic meter

The verses of the Vedas have a variety of different meters. They are divided by number of padas in a verse, and by the number of syllables in a pada. Chandas , the study of Vedic meter, is one of the six Vedanga disciplines, or "organs of the vedas".*: 3 padas of 8 syllables-Principles:The main...

. However, in North India and Pakistan, chhand has come to mean a specific poetic style associated with the modern languages native to the region, such as Punjabi

Punjabi language

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...

, Hindko

Hindko language

Hindko , also Hindku, or Hinko, is the sixth main regional language of Pakistan. It forms a subgroup of Indo-Aryan languages spoken by Hindkowans in Pakistan and northern India, some Pashtun tribes in Pakistan, as well as by the Hindki people of Afghanistan...

, Dogri, Hindi-Urdu and Rajasthani

Rajasthani language

Rajasthani Rajasthani Rajasthani (Devanagari: , Perso-Arabic: is a language of the Indo-Aryan languages family. It is spoken by 50 million people in Rajasthan and other states of India and in some areas of Pakistan. The number of speakers may be up to 80 million worldwide...

.