[INDOLOGY] Spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?

Tue May 15 05:33:53 UTC 2018

H. H. Wilson, in his introduction to Stevenson's Sanhita of the Sama Veda
(1842) observes: "The Manuscript sent home by Mr. Stevenson is written in
the usual method of Sanskrit Manuscripts ; and has the words arranged
continuously, without any separation. The difliculties of the language of
the Vedas do not need to be aggravated by the perplexity which this style
of writing involves, especially when the words are obsolete or unusual, and
their dissection is unaided by previous familiarity with them in their
unconnected state. This has been felt by native Sanskrit scholars ; and
hence have arisen the Padas, or copies of the Sanhitås of the different
Vedas, in which the connection of concurrent words is broken down, and each
word is placed within lines or brackets in its crude or uncompounded and
unattached form. Half the difficulty of the Text is at once removed by this
expedient ;  and I have thought that a similar assistance would not be
unthankfully received by the European Scholar. I have therefore followed
the Pada so far as to separate the words upon the principle that seems to
be least objectionable—that of dividing them from the words or passages
which follow, when it can be done without any offensive violation of the
laws of Sandhi or euphonic combination. It is needless to observe, that
this is very often quite practicable, and that it is always convenient to
the reader. The adoption of this modification has occasioned me very
considerable trouble; but if it has furnished that facility to the
understanding of the Text which may be expected to result from it, I shall
not regret my labour."

This is somewhat different, but not entirely contradicted by Monier
Williams's remarks in his "A Practical Grammar" (and more or less repeated
verbatim later by Whitney):

OF THE INDIAN METHOD OF WRITING.
26. According to Hindu grammarians every syllable ought to end in a vowel,
and every final consonant ought to be attracted to the beginning of the
next syllable; that where a word ends in a consonant, that consonant ought
to be pronounced with the initial letter of the next word. Hence in some
Sanskrit MSS. all the syllables are separated by slight spaces, and in
others all the words are joined together without any separation. Thus the
two words asid raja would in some books be written and in others In
Sanskrit works printed in Europe, the common practice is to separate only
those words the final or initial letter of which are not acted on by the
rules of combination. In such books asid raja would be written together,
because the final is the result of an euphonic change from caused by the
following r. There seems, however, but little reason for considering the
mere spaces left between the words of a sentence to be incompatible with
the operation of euphonic laws ; especially as the absence of such spaces
must always cause more or less impediment even to the fluent reader.
Therefore in many books recently printed in Europe, every uncompounded word
capable of separation by the use of the Viråma is separated. ... (Practical
Grammar, p. 16, 1857)

On Mon, May 14, 2018 at 10:01 PM, Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Some of the Prakrit manuscripts I've seen---most relatively recent, but
> nevertheless pre-print---separate words in the Prakrit text with a dot or
> with small daṇḍa-like marks above the line (the latter may have been added
> subsequently). Words aren't separated in the accompanying Sanskrit
> commentaries to these texts.
>
> There are spaces between (some) words in most versions of Asoka's pillar
> edicts, but I'm not sure how frequent interword spacing is in later
> inscriptions, if it happens at all.
>
> 2018-05-14 23:43 GMT-05:00 Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info>:
>
>> 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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>>>
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