[INDOLOGY] Spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?

[Jonathan Silk]

Alluded to earlier is what happens in Aśoka's inscriptions, studied in
detail by Klaus Ludwig Janert:  Abstände und Schlussvokalverzeichnungen in
Aśoka-Inschriften, Wiesbaden, : F. Steiner, 1972 . Verzeichnis der
orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland. Supplementband ; 10. Some of
the VOHD is available online free, but apparently not this volume, as far
as I see from a cursory search. This work was much reviewed, and has an
English introduction, so even if you cannot read German it is not difficult
to discover his main points.

Jonathan

On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 8:15 AM, Tieken, H.J.H. via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> A few years ago I have edited and translated Tamil letters sent from
> Ceylon to Cape Town in South Africa between 1728-1737. It concerns private
> correspondence: mother (dictated to brother-in-law), brothers, in-laws
> writing to Nicolaas Ondaatje, who had been banished by the Dutch to the
> Cape. The letters do not show any trace of interspacing. The initial vowel
> of a word is attached to the final consonant of the preceding word (if that
> word happens to end with a consonant). The letters lack punctuation and
> there is no spacing between sentences. There is also no division into
> paragraphs; a new paragraph may simply start in the middle of the line.
> However, not infrequently the first letter of a new paragraph is larger
> than the others (influence from Dutch?).
> Herman
>
> Herman Tieken
> Stationsweg 58
> 2515 BP Den Haag
> The Netherlands
> 00 31 (0)70 2208127
> website: hermantieken.com
> ------------------------------
> *Van:* INDOLOGY [indology-bounces at list.indology.info] namens Madhav
> Deshpande via INDOLOGY [indology at list.indology.info]
> *Verzonden:* dinsdag 15 mei 2018 6:43
> *Aan:* McComas Taylor
> *CC:* indology
> *Onderwerp:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?
>
> 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
>>
>>
>> [image: 1498624349007_vishnu_small.png]
>>
>> Ask me about my new project:
>>
>> *'Translating the **Viṣṇu Purāṇa'*
>>
>>
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-- 
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
2311 BZ Leiden
The Netherlands

copies of my publications may be found at
https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/JASilk


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