[INDOLOGY] Devanagari v and b in Kashmiri manuscripts again

[Harry Spier]

Dear list members,
Since the discussion about devanagari v and b in Kashmiri manuscripts a few
months ago, I've been looking at some devanagari manuscripts from the
Ragunath temple in Jammu in more detail.

In the ānandeśvarapaddhatiḥ and the bagalamukhīpañcaṅgam the scribe writes
व for  ब almost all the time, but the few cases where he writes *ब*
for *ब*  seem
deliberate.
The ānandeśvarapaddhatiḥ is the strangest case. In the whole manuscript of
206 folios  there are only 4 cases where *ब*  was written for *ब* There was
one case of the bījamantra *baṁ* but the other three cases  were all for
declensions of the same word  *bahukhādaka* in widely separated folios. (
*bahukhādaka* was also written in the manuscript as  *vahukhādaka* 5
times).
Any explanations about why the scribe took the care to write the word
*bahukhādaka* correctly a few times and only took the care in those places
would be greatly appreciated.  If anyone wants more details (link to
manuscript, folio numbers etc.I can supply those .

In  the bagalamukhīpañcaṅgam where the scribe writes "b" for "b" seems more
understandable. Again he writes "v" for "b" most of the time.  But the
cases where he takes the care to write "b" for "b" are in the names of
deities or words related to deities.
He wrote: bagalāmukhī 21 times (but vagalāmukhī 31 times) and bradhnā,
brahmaputrī, tryaṁbaka, aṁbuja, pītāṁbarā, brahmāstra. As far as I could
see he wrote "v" for "b" for the rest of the manuscript except for the
 bījamantra
baṁ .

Thanks,
Harry Spier




Harry Spier
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