[INDOLOGY] Examples of very ambiguous devanagari Sanskrit sentences

[Patrick Olivelle]

>From a legal standpoint here is an interesting example given by Mādhava in his Pārāśara-Mādhavīya about a plea in a court of law that is "ambiguous" saṃdighdha. Here the operative words are: "mayādeyam" -- which could be mayā + adeyam OR mayā deyam, with totally opposite meanings. Here is the quote:

PārM III: 75‒76: देयं मयेत्युक्ते सति संदेहमन्तरेण दातव्यनिश्चयो भवति तदनुक्त्वा मयादेयमिति यद्ब्रूयात्तदानीम् अदेयमिति वा देयमिति वा पदस्य छेत्तुं शक्यत्वादुत्तरं संदिग्धं भवति । 
Patruck


On Feb 8, 2015, at 11:15 AM, Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear list members,
> 
> I need to show to some non-sanskritists that given a Sanskrit phrase in devanagari, that how you put in the word breaks in the transliteration can result in phrases with very different meanings.
> 
> Can any of the list members give examples of short sentences in simple sanskrit in devanagari that when the words are split  differently in the transliteration give grammatically correct Sanskrit sentences but produce Sanskrit phrases with  "radically" different meanings.
> 
> For my purposes simple Sanskrit sentences are better than more complicated Sanskrit from the literature.  And sentences that give very different meanings depending on how the words are broken up are better than more subtle differences. 
> 
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
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