Why not a definitive devnagri font

[George Cardona]

Since Madhav Deshpande has mentioned my work in connection with this
discussion, let me add a few words.  Although I do not say this explicitly, my
practice has been this: sutras and examples are given both in Devanagari and
Roman script.  The former is intended for those scholars who, even though they
read English, prefer to read Sanskrit text in Devanagari; the latter is for
those linguists and others who are not primarily Sanskritists but are
interested in rules and examples.  For other citations, of commentators'
discussions, for example, only   Devanagari is used, under the assumption that the
material in question is of interest primarily to the Indologist.  As for
journal practices: given that a journal like the JAOS routinely uses Arabic and
Cyrillic and Chinese scripts, there is no reason in principle why Indian
scripts too should not be used.  For communicating on a network such as this,
on the other hand, it may well be simplest to stick to transliterations, most
of which are not all that hard.  The audience is such that this would appear
adequate.  George Cardona