A chaupai (चौपाई) is a

quatrain A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines. Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Gre ...

verse of Indian poetry, especially medieval

Hindi poetry Hindi literature ( hi, हिन्दी साहित्य, translit=hindī sāhitya) includes literature in the various Hindi language which have writing systems. Earliest forms of Hindi literature are attested in poetry of Apabhraṃ� ...

, that uses a

metre The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its p ...

of four syllables. Famous chaupais include those of poet-saint

Tulsidas Tulsidas (; born Rambola Dubey; also known as Goswami Tulsidas; c.1511pp. 23–34.–1623) was a Ramanandi Vaishnava Hindu saint and poet, renowned for his devotion to the deity Rama. He wrote several popular works in Sanskrit and Awadhi, but ...

(used in his classical text ''

Ramcharitamanas ''Ramcharitmanas'' ( deva, श्रीरामचरितमानस, Rāmacaritamānasa), is an epic poem in the Awadhi language, based on the ''Ramayana'', and composed by the 16th-century Indian bhakti poet Tulsidas (c. 1532–1623). This ...

'' and poem ''

Hanuman Chalisa The ''Hanuman Chalisa'' (; '' Forty chaupais on Hanuman'') is a Hindu devotional hymn (''stotra'') in praise of Hanuman.Rambhadradas 1984pp. 1–8./ref> It was authored by Tulsidas in the Awadhi language, and is his best known text apart from th ...

'') . Chaupai is identified by a syllable count 16/16, counted with a value of 1 in case of Hrasva (short sounding letter) and 2 in case of Dirgha (long sounding letter).

Examples

Some of the famous 40 ''chaupais'' (known as "chalisa"); *

* Ganesh Chalisa * Shiv Chalisa

Examples

See also