Nasals, gemination and dandas

[Frits Staal]

There is a lot on danda in: Armand MINARD, Trois enigmes sur les cent 
chemins, Vol.II, Paris 1956.

At 02:25 PM 9/9/02 +0200, you wrote:
>Dear members,
>I am working on a critical edition of the 17th chapter of Prasannapada
>Madhyamakavrtti by Candrakirti (7th century) as part of my Ph.D.
>dissertation. I am using five Sanskrit manuscripts of Nepalese origin, some
>of which are written in Nevari-script, while others are written in
>Devanagari. A further ten manuscripts have been eliminated as apographs. I
>am noticing certain differences in the scribal habits with regard to three
>points:
>
>(1) the oldest ms (13th century) tends to use homorganic nasals, where the
>later mss (18-19th century) tend to use anusvara;
>
>(2) gemination, i.e., doubling of consonants after repha (the letter r) such
>as karmma or dharmma instead of karma or dharma respectively (cf. Whitney's
>grammar, § 228), occurs randomly in both the oldest and later mss, often
>without agreement and completely inconsistently. It seems that gemination
>may occassionally have been added by the scribe without regard to his
>original, although this would contradict the natural presumption that the
>scribe generally tend to omit gemination rather than to add it.
>
>(3) While the oldest ms tends to use ekadanda (single danda) in most
>instances though not always, the later mss tend to use dvidanda (double
>dandas) in most cases.
>
>I would like to know whether there exists any studies on any of these
>points, which may either support or contradict my findings and which may
>perhaps also clarify the scribal habits in question. If any of you have made
>similar or dissimilar observations in the course text-critical work or
>reading of manuscripts that may add to my understanding, I am also
>interested in hearing your opinions.
>
>Sincerely,
>Ulrich T. Kragh
>University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Frits Staal
http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/staal/