avagraha in Malayalam Manuscript

[Asko Parpola]

I could also locate my ms and sent yesterday a scan to N. Ganesan with the 
following comment: 

"I think that the 
Malayalam script originally did not have an avagraha sign. Some Malayali 
scholars, however, have now and then, though very rarely, used an 
avagraha sign, which they knew from other scripts. In this case, the 
sign has apparently been taken over from the devanagari script. It has been 
made angular, though, to distinguish it from the Malayalam sign for the 
retroflex Ta, which is too close to the devanagari avagraha."

As Kengo Harimoto's scans have the same shape, this sign clearly was more 
widely known and seems to have become a regular (though not original) part 
of the Malayalam script.

Best regards, Asko Parpola
 

Quoting Kengo Harimoto <kengo.harimoto at UNI-HAMBURG.DE>:

> Thanks for bringing back the topic.  I have finally located the sign  
> best interpreted as avagraha in the manuscript(s) I used.  I think I  
> can finally fulfill my promise...
> 
> Scans are available at:
> 
> http://homepage.mac.com/kengoharimoto/avagraha1.jpg
> "pañcaparvva?o 'vidy?d?n kle??n"
> 
> http://homepage.mac.com/kengoharimoto/avagraha2.jpg
> "tu?abdo 'vadh" (this is the end of the line, and continues  
> "?ra??rtha?".)
> 
> http://homepage.mac.com/kengoharimoto/avagraha3.jpg
> "yogagrah?e 'sati"
> 
> The second one is small and ambiguous, but the other two share a  
> distinctive shape; the shape described by Asko Parpola in the post on  
> September 2, 2007.
> 
> As I mentioned in an earlier post, these are anomalies.  It turns out  
> that these fragments all come from a single folio (folio 4 of the  
> manuscript of the P?tañjalayoga??stravivara?a, perserved in the  
> Oriental Manuscript Library, Trivandrum, L. 662).  I could not find  
> any more (although I cannot claim that I have been thorough).
> 
> Now that I have scans of the Malayalam manuscripts I have used, I  
> will try to submit them to Indoskript.
> 
> -- 
> kengo harimoto, NGMCP
> 
> On Oct 2, 2007, at 12:59 , gruenendahl wrote:
> 
> > This may be a little late, and not really to the point:
> > One Malayalam print of a Sanskrit text that actually notes avagrahas,
> > I.C. Chacko's "Paniniya Pradyotam" (Ernakulam 1955), uses what is
> > known as the florin symbol in typography. This suggests to me that  
> > there
> > was no Malayalam sign available.
> >
> > For specimina see:
> >
> > www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/temp.htm
> >
> > from where you can download
> >
> > temp2.zip
> >
> > which contains some TIFFs from Chacko's book, with avagrahas in
> > 1332 (Panini 5,4.76) and
> > 1375 (Panini 5,4.131).
> >
> > Regards
> > Reinhold Grünendahl
> >
> >
> >
> > ********************************************************************
> >
> > Dr. Reinhold Gruenendahl
> > Niedersaechsische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek
> > Fachreferat sued- und suedostasiatische Philologien
> > (Dept. of Indology)
> >
> > 37070 Göttingen, Germany
> > Tel (+49) (0)5 51 / 39 52 83
> > Fax (+49) (0)5 51 / 39 23 61
> > gruenen at mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de
> >
> > FACH-INFORMATIONEN INDOLOGIE, GOETTINGEN:
> > http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/fiindolo.htm
> > In English:
> > http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/fiindole.htm
> >
> > GRETIL - Goettingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages
> > http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/gretil.htm
> >
> 
> 


Asko Parpola
Institute for Asian and African Studies
POB 59 (Unioninkatu 38 B)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland