Well, mzybe not so cool: Sanskrit script?

[Walter Slaje]

> The standardized use of Nagari for Sanskrit should be seen in the wider 
> context of linguistic innovation in the nineteenth century.
[...]
> "The great recommendation of High-Hindi (or Nāgarī-Hindi) for its Hindu 
> supporters lies in its Nāgarī alphabet (which under British rule has 
> become the accepted all-India script for Sanskrit: being used for the 
> Deva-bhāṣā or 'the language of the Gods', it acquired in recent times the 
> honoured name Deva-nāgarī, and this added to its prestige, [...]

This may be true in general, but I find it difficult to apply the above 
criteria to Kashmir.
First, the name of the Sharada script refers already to a deity, namely to 
Sharada or Sarasvati Devi, the goddess of learning and eloquence. Why 
exchange a prestigious name and the script it designates for another, such 
as Deva-Nagari?
Second, Kashmir was never under British rule,
and third, Hindi played no role there at all and can therefore not be seen 
in the context of a linguistic innovation.

The manuscripts in old Kashmiri I am aware of are written in Sharada.
Modern Kashmiri is commonly written in the Urdu script - as a successor to 
the Persian characters in use for Persian texts in late medieval times, but 
significantly enough not in Devanagari.

Regards,

WS

------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
Hermann-Löns-Str. 1
D-99425 Weimar
(Germany)
www.indologie.uni-halle.de

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