[INDOLOGY] Examples of very ambiguous devanagari Sanskrit sentences

[Patrick Olivelle]

As far as I know, avagraha was/is used to indicate true elision of a vowel, most frequently the short "a": e.g. सोऽहम् (for स: अहम्). In the examples given, there is no true elision but simply saṃdhi that creates the long ā; we have similar vowel assimilations in a + i = e, and one never put a avagraha to indicate this.



On Feb 9, 2015, at 10:54 AM, dhaval patel <drdhaval2785 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Let's fix the earliest date when avagraha made appearance.
> Randomly picking up my manuscript copies shows that avagraha was prevalent in 1574 vikrama saMvat (around 1497-98 AD roughly) for sure. So, it is not too modern a phenomenon.
> References with evidence pointing to a still earlier date is welcome.
> Please find attached the manuscript page with colophon.
> See third line त्वयाऽधुना. 
> Also see the use of avagraha to do vicCeda of sandhi in the commentary above the verse lines.
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 8:23 PM, Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dipak Bhattacharya raises a point I've wondered about. 
> 1) Why wasn't (until recently) avagraha used to resolve this kind of ambiguity.
> 2)  Is avagraha only a written sign or is it some kind of pause in spoken Sanskrit
> 3) How far back does avagraha go.  To Panini, pre-Panini, post-Panini ?
> 
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
> 
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 12:02 AM, Dipak Bhattacharya <dipak.d2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> As for the original question of Mr. Harry Spier in some publications an avagraha is put to indicate a coalesced/elided अ and two for two such अs. One has मयाsदेयम् for mayā adeyam and मयाssदेयम् for mayā ādeyam.
> I did not see the latter in manuscripts.
> 
> Best
> 
> DB
> 
>  
> 
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 10:45 PM, 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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> -- 
> Dr. Dhaval Patel, I.A.S
> District Development Officer, Rajkot
> www.sanskritworld.in
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