Use of Devanagari for Sanskrit

[Rosane Rocher]

What George says about South Indian scripts goes for Bengali script as 
well. I have often wondered why early British Orientalists in Calcutta 
adopted - and propagated - Devanagari in preference to Bengali script, 
which was - and to a large extent continues to be - the vehicle of 
choice for Sanskrit texts in Bengal. For some texts of proven Bengali 
provenance, the division between late 18th and early 19th century 
manuscripts  in traditional oblong loose-leaf format in Bengali script 
for indigenous patrons, and manuscripts in book-style format and 
Devanagari script for Western Orientalists is stark. A perhaps not 
unrelated question is why Orientalists such as Charles Wilkins and 
Francis Wilford sought to go to Banaras to pursue study and research in 
Sanskrit when there was a still  thriving Bengali tradition of Sanskrit 
studies in Nadiya (Navadvipa), if not in Calcutta. Rosane Rocher    

George Hart wrote:
> In a draft about unicode Eric Muller has written "By the eleventh 
> century, the modern script known as Devanagari was in ascendancy in 
> India proper as the major script of Sanskrit literature."  This seems 
> wrong to me -- certainly, in South India grantha, Telugu, Malayalam 
> and Kannada scripts  continued to be used for Sanskrit into the 20th 
> century and, to some extent, are still used (e.g. by priests in the 
> Murugan temple in Concord, CA).  I would be interested in getting some 
> feedback on this matter -- when and where did Devanagari become 
> standard for Sanskrit?  I would guess that it begins fairly early in 
> the North and only reaches South India in the 20th century.  Many 
> years ago, I purchased 2 large collections of Sri Vaisnava books from 
> the estates of two devotees who had passed away (their children had no 
> use for them, sadly).  The books, all of which were published in the 
> first half of the 20th century, include perhaps 1/3 Sanskrit texts.  
> Of these about 1/10 are in devanagari, 75% are in Telugu script and 
> 15% are in grantha.  The collections also include a large number (30%) 
> of Tamil books printed in Telugu script -- which enables one to write 
> Sanskrit phonemes which are not represented in the Tamil script.  The 
> rest are Tamil books in Tamil script, with Sanskrit (quoted and used 
> liberally by commentators) generally in grantha.  It is worth 
> remembering that after 1100 or so, the majority of Sanskrit writers 
> have been South Indians -- at least that is what I have read.  George 
> Hart
>