[INDOLOGY] ligature in grantha script

[François Patte]

Le 08/04/2021 à 18:27, Marco Franceschini a écrit :
> Allegato disponibile fino al giorno 8 mag 2021
> Dear François,
> 
> I have never seen this ligature in a Grantha manuscript, but it is found 
> in some Grantha printed books, also in combination with the “standard" 
> form of the ligature. In the attached pages, the “standard" ligature 
> occurs on page 6 of the pdf file, whereas the “unorthodox” ligature 
> appears in the title page (pdf p. 4) and regularly in the text of the 
> Bhagavadgītā (from pdf page 38 onward). What the origin of this ligature 
> is, I can’t tell for sure: perhaps it is to be looked for in the 
> so-called “Jaina” Grantha, i.e. the Tamilian Grantha used in jaina 
> circles (which is possibly the model for the design of the printing 
> types for Tamilian Grantha); perhaps in the (Grantha) Malayalam script, 
> as Heike suggested; perhaps earlier than both, in the Grantha 
> inscriptions of, say, the 16th century.
> 
> It is years that I study the Grantha script, and I'd be very grateful to 
> you if you could tell me in which manuscript you found this ligature and 
> whether the manuscript is explicitly dated or you dated it to the 18th 
> century on the basis of palaeographic considerations.

Thank you for your answer.

It is a manuscript in French written by a Tamil who was the interpreter 
of  the french king in Pondicherry in the years 1770/1790.

It is a memoir on the astronomy in use at that time on the Coromandel 
coast. He was a christian and the french astronomer Le Gentil describes 
him as a very learned person knowing Sanskrit, Latin and Greek and (of 
course) French.

In this memoir, he gives words and quotations in Tamil, written in tamil 
script and in Sanskrit, written in grantha script. There are several 
non-standard ligatures, the one I already sent, and others I attach to 
this mail.

I am wondering if these ligatures are local variants or if the author 
did not know very well the rules of grantha script.

I have also a question about the vowell "u" which is written like a  "ṛ" 
(or a "i"?). I give some exemples in the attached file.

I think that it is a "u" instead of a "ṛ" because he give the full text 
of the Vararuci's vākya and I can compare with the edition of these 
vākya given in the Haricarita edited by Pandit Krishnamacarya.

For this problem, I am wondering if it a variant in the script or a 
mistake due to the pronunciation of the vowell "ṛ" wich is pronounced 
like a "ru" in some parts of India. For instance, in this text, the 
author call the Sanskrit, the "sanskroutam".

Thank you and best regards

-- 
François Patte
UFR de mathématiques et informatique
Laboratoire CNRS MAP5, UMR 8145
Université Paris Descartes
45, rue des Saints Pères
F-75270 Paris Cedex 06
Tél. +33 (0)6 7892 5822
http://www.math-info.univ-paris5.fr/~patte
FSF
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/presenting-shoetool-happy-holidays-from-the-fsf
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ligatures.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 206368 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20210411/1fdc4b80/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_signature
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 203 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20210411/1fdc4b80/attachment.sig>