Sorting Devanagari text

[Nobumi Iyanaga]

I am moderating a little electronic discussion group dealing with the 
issues related to the use of computer in the oriental studies in 
general (this discussion group has just been created this month in a 
Japanese commercial BBS named "NiftyServe").  There, I talked about 
this thread yesterday -- and a friend of mine replied today saying 
that a free application which makes an index of the words of sanskrit 
texts exists in Japan.  According to his posting, this application 
makes a sorted index of words, and supports several transliteration 
systems, among which that of the Kyoto University and Harvard 
University (KH system).  An example of the result:
            [a]
a(2) [3] 11 21
akAGkSaM(1) [3] 17
akSa(1) [3] 22
akSa..pAda.upadiSTam(1) [3] 22
agni(1) [2] 21
agni..hotraM(1) [2] 21
aGga(2) [3] 10 [4] 5*

Numeral in parenthesis = frequency
numeral in square brackets = page
other numeral = line

This application was created for a particular type of personal 
computers popular in Japan (NEC 9800 series), but must work also in 
DOS machines in general (but the author, Mr. Mitsuyuki Shimizu, is not
 sure on this point, according to my friend).

I myself am a Mac user and have never used this application (moreover,
 I have no special knowledge on the computer science...).  But anyway,
 I am going to write to our discussion group to say that this kind of 
software is needed by the international community of indologists (and 
buddhologists, etc.) and should be made available from anywhere in the
 world (currently, this application is available only in one Japanese 
commercial BBS named "PC-VAN").

Best wishes.
Nobumi Iyanaga
Tokyo,
Japan
(GGA03414 at niftyserve.or.jp / n-iyanag at cc.win.or.jp)

P.S.  I visited the new INDOLOGY Web page and I find it really 
excellent.  Thank you very much!
 


> From THRASHER at MAIL.LOC.GOV 27 1995 Jul EST 10:18:10
Date: 27 Jul 1995 10:18:10 EST
Reply-To: THRASHER <THRASHER at MAIL.LOC.GOV>
From: ALLEN W THRASHER <THRASHER at MAIL.LOC.GOV>
Subject: COULSON'S TEXTBOOK

          On  Coulson's "Teaching Yourself Sanskrit."  I  taught elementary 
          Sanskrit a year or two using it.   I would have to review all the 
          textbooks currently available before I ventured which is the best 
          overall, but  I would say that the  most useful aspect of  it  is 
          that  it teaches first  the constructions that  are actually used 
          the  most  in classical Sanskrit (e.g. passives come earlier than 
          in previous textbooks, and so  do participial constructions).  On 
          the  other hand,  its taking its examples mostly from  kavya  has 
          left  it  with  a  vocabulary that  doesn't  represent  the  core 
          vocabulary of Sanskrit literature as  a whole as  well  as  other 
          textbooks; a  number of  words scarcely appear outside of  kavya, 
          and the student interested in epics, puranas,                     
          philosophy-theology, astronomy, medicine, etc.  is  left  with  a 
          weaker core vocabulary at the end  of  the year, not enough words 
          for "horse, lotus, intelligence, liberation," and the like. 
           
          Allen Thrasher 
          athr at loc.gov