The Florence Fragments

[Stefan Baums]

Dear Allen,

when talking about the Sinhala script, the term miśra usually
refers to a grapheme set rather than a script style. The miśra set
includes a range of consonants for writing Sanskrit and Pali
loanwords (i.e., what we might otherwise think of as a complete
varṇamālā) and, secondarily, English etc. loanwords. In this
usage, miśra contrasts with śuddha: the core set of Sinhalese
graphemes needed for the writing of Eḷu (tadbhava Sinhala) words.
Since Jacob’s manuscript is written in Sanskrit, it would have to
use the full (miśra) consonant inventory. I do not think (but may
be wrong) that the miśra inventory typically correlates with a
distinct script style.

All best,
Stefan

-- 
Dr. Stefan Baums
Group in Buddhist Studies
University of California, Berkeley