ITRANS for Indic text processing

[dom]

I have recently been in touch with Avinash Chopde about his ITRANS
package.  This is a set of programs for producing Indian script
output from transliterated input.  It supports several scripts,
and integrates with TeX.  You don't have to use TeX, though,
and there is a formatter included which outputs PostScript directly.

The new development is that Avinash will shortly be adding CS
encoding as a supported input coding scheme.

Avinash has included some Sanskrit texts with ITRANS, and these are
mostly texts that are not (yet) on the INDOLOGY listserv.  Also,
Avinash has linked ITRANS to a WWW server, so one can actually view
Sanskrit texts across the Internet, as long as you have Mosaic and
a Postscript previewer like GhostScript (both hefty programs, but available
free).

Here are some extracts from our recent exchanges:
===================================================================

Avinash says:

Don't know if I told you this, but there are also some documents in
ITRANS availabe through Mosaic. Soem 15--20 Sanskrit docs, and some 1000
Hindi Film Songs!

If/when you have Mosaic access to WWW, it is possible to see the docs in
the input transliterated form, and in the devenagari script (using a
PostScript viewer). The site is: http://chandra.astro.indiana.edu/isongs

====
Avinash Chopde    |    (508) 640 3138    |       Avid Technology, Inc.
avinash at acm.org   |   avinash at avid.com   |   Tewksbury, Massachusetts, USA
===================================================================

avid.com!achopde says:
From: avid.com!achopde
To: D.Wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk)
Subject: WWW site.

>Avinash, may I forward your message about Sanskrit texts and WWW/Mosaic
>to the INDOLOGY group?  I'm sure nobody there knows about this.

Yup, you should also point out that even though they could use ITRANS
right now, it will be better to wait four months when CS encoding is
built-in into ITRANS...

Since they will probably be interested in Sanskrit only, here is a list
of files available in the Sanskrit directory:

FILE		CONTENT
------------	-----------------------------------------------------
aatmasha.s	aatmashhaTak.h
atharva.s	shrii gaNapatyatharvashiirshha
bhagvad.itx	shriimad.h bhagavad.h giita
bhagveng.tex	Bhagavadgita:The Song Celestial, English text: Sir Edwin Arnold
bhajans.s	Various Hindi and Sanskrit Bhajans
chaaleng.tex	Hanuman Chalisa, English Translation
chaalisa.s	shrii hanumaan chaaliisaa
dkavach.s	Devi kavach
ganesha.s	shriigaNeshastotra
navagrah.s	shriinavagrahastotra
rraksha.s	shriiraamarakshaastotra
shloka.s	Few common shlokas used for recitation
smaanasa.s	shivamaanasapuujaa
surya.s		Few shlokas and mantras used during Yoga/suuryanamaskaar
viveka.s	vivekachuDaamaNi
vsahasr.s	shriivishhNusahasranaama
----------------------------------------------------------------------

If users have Mosaic installed with GhostScript (a PostScript viewer),
they can view these documents in ASCII (ITRANS Transliteration), or
Devanagari (using Frans Velthuis's font).

FTP info:

| ITRANS Song Book
| ----------------
|
| Files:
|     isongs*.tar.gz: Archive contains ITRANS Song Book
| 
| (All archives are in UNIX tar format, compressed using GNU Zip.)
|
| For specific file names, browse the given directories at the FTP sites.
| 
| FTP the ITRANS Song Book from:
| 
| Anonymous FTP site (USA): chandra.astro.indiana.edu (129.79.160.69)
| Directory: /pub/isongs/
| 
| Anonymous FTP site (FINLAND): ftp.funet.fi
| Directory: /pub/culture/music/indian/isongs/
| 
| For a quick look, using Mosaic (or Lynx) check out:
| World-Wide-Web HTTP URL:
|     http://chandra.astro.indiana.edu/isongs
====
Avinash Chopde    |    (508) 640 3138    |       Avid Technology, Inc.
avinash at acm.org   |   avinash at avid.com   |   Tewksbury, Massachusetts, USA

--
Dominik