[INDOLOGY] Spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?

[Madhav Deshpande]

Dear McComas,

     This must have happened gradually after the Sanskrit Pundits were
exposed to English printing.  Even the early Sanskrit printed texts in the
form of pothis did not separate words.  I have many such old printed
materials.  I have attached a sample page.  If this practice continued into
early printing, it is simply because the printing style was copying the
writing style of the manuscripts.  I have photographs of a few texts that
were hand written by the famous Pandit Vasudeva Shastri Abhyankar where I
do not see gaps between the words.  Early pothis of Vedic texts printed by
the Nirnaya Sagara Press also do not show any gaps between words.

Madhav Deshpande
Campbell, California

On Mon, May 14, 2018 at 9:02 PM, McComas Taylor via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear colleagues
>
>
> A student has asked me a questions I cannot answer:  'When did scribes
> begin to insert spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?'
>
>
> Can any of you learned folk help us out?
>
>
> Thanks in advance
>
>
> McComas
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> McComas Taylor, SFHEA
> Associate Professor, Reader in Sanskrit
> College of Asia and the Pacific
> The Australian National University, Tel. + 61 2 6125 3179
> Website: https://sites.google.com/site/mccomasanu/
>
> Address: Baldessin Building 4.24, ANU, ACT 0200
>
>
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