[INDOLOGY] Spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?

Tue May 15 18:49:26 UTC 2018

Thanks, Tim, for this scan showing occasional breaks of external sandhis.

Madhav

On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 10:04 AM, Lubin, Tim <LubinT at wlu.edu> wrote:

> Dear Madhav,
>
> I my experience too, breaks in the application of external sandhi is a
> very common, even routine (if not consistently applied), as the most basic
> form of “punctuation” in prose texts, used both for logical breaks in the
> syntax and occasionally just to avoid ambiguity.  Looking at the first
> lines of a commentary I have recently edited, I can find examples:
>
> In my edition:
>
> (Hope fully the images come through.)  Note the akṣaras on either side of
> where I have place the first two commas.  I see this all the time.
>
> Best,
> Tim
>
> Timothy Lubin
> Professor of Religion and Adjunct Professor of Law
> Chair of the Department of Religion
> Chair of the Middle East and South Asia Studies Program
> 204 Tucker Hall
> Washington and Lee University
> Lexington, Virginia 24450
>
> http://home.wlu.edu/~lubint
> https://hcommons.org/members/lubin
> http://wlu.academia.edu/TimothyLubin
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=930949
>
>
> From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of
> INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
> Reply-To: Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, May 15, 2018 at 12:40 PM
> To: Camillo Formigatti <camillo.formigatti at bodleian.ox.ac.uk>
> Cc: INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
>
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?
>
> Hello Camillo,
>
>      There is something new to learn.  I noticed your statement: "in many
> more manuscripts than we might think the non-application of external sandhi
> is used to mark word boundaries.".  I have not come across such
> manuscripts, but evidently you have.  Can you give a reference to such a
> manuscript, or give us a scan of a page from such a manuscript.  Except for
> the Padapāṭha manuscripts, I am not aware of this practice.  With best
> wishes,
>
> Madhav Deshpande
> Campbell, California
>
> On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 9:19 AM, Camillo Formigatti <
> camillo.formigatti at bodleian.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Dear McComas
>>
>>
>>
>> As you might have gathered from the various replies, I’m afraid your
>> student asked a question which cannot really be answered, at least not
>> yet—South Asian codicology is still in its cradle. As already pointed out
>> in this thread, blank spaces were used already in Asokan inscriptions. In
>> my modest opinion, the question cannot be easily answered also because we
>> always have to distinguish between scripts and local usages. Moreover,
>> other strategies were employed in manuscripts to achieve the same
>> objective, for instance in many more manuscripts than we might think the
>> non-application of external sandhi is used to mark word boundaries. Also,
>> the word dividers mentioned by Andrew are very widespread in all kind of
>> Northern Indian manuscripts, above all of Gebrauchstexte and famous works
>> which were read for teaching purposes. On the other hand, if I’m not wrong
>> (my expertise in this field is very limited), South Indian scripts tend to
>> have less punctuation and dividing marks than Northern Indian scripts.
>>
>>
>>
>> You can get a good idea of such topics in the following book:
>>
>>
>>
>> Einicke, Katrin. *Korrektur, Differenzierung Und Abkürzung in Indischen
>> Inschriften und Handschriften*. Abhandlungen Für Die Kunde Des
>> Morgenlandes ; Bd. 68. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009.
>>
>>
>>
>> As to older manuscripts, I think this article is also very useful:
>>
>>
>>
>> The Poetic and Prosodic Aspect of the Page. Forms and Graphic Artifices
>> of Early Indic Buddhist Manuscripts in a Historical Perspective
>>
>> Scherrer-Schaub, Cristina
>>
>> DOI (Chapter): https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110543100-009
>>
>>
>>
>> I hope this is helpful.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>>
>>
>> Camillo
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>> Dr Camillo A. Formigatti
>>
>> John Clay Sanskrit Librarian
>>
>>
>>
>> Bodleian Libraries
>>
>> The Weston Library
>>
>> Broad Street, Oxford
>>
>> OX1 3BG
>>
>>
>>
>> Email: camillo.formigatti at bodleian.ox.ac.uk
>>
>> Tel. (office): 01865 (2)77208
>> www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
>>
>>
>>
>> *GROW YOUR MIND*
>>
>> in Oxford University’s
>>
>> Gardens, Libraries and Museums
>>
>> www.mindgrowing.org
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Jonathan Silk [mailto:kauzeya at gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 15 May 2018 09:28
>> *To:* Tieken, H.J.H. <H.J.H.Tieken at hum.leidenuniv.nl>
>> *Cc:* Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu>; McComas Taylor <
>> McComas.Taylor at anu.edu.au>; indology <indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Subject:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?
>>
>>
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>> 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
>> <https://maps.google.com/?q=Matthias+de+Vrieshof+3&entry=gmail&source=g>,
>> 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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