[INDOLOGY] Devanagari v and b in manuscripts from Kashmir

[Harry Spier]

Attached are two extracts from a   bagalāmukhīpañcāṅgam   manuscript  of
Shri Raghunatha Temple Library  (I've put a link to the full manuscript  at
the end of this email).
If you look at the first attached extract  you'll see that on the same
folio 4B the scribe has spelled the same word bindu as both  बिंदु and विंदु
If you look at the second attached extract you'll see the scribe wrote  baga
lāmukhī/ā 3 times with बगल...  (one of those times mispelled with balā...
not bagalā...)  and twice with वगल... in the space of 5 folios.

Note: the blue highlighted is from me not from the original manuscript.

So what does that mean?
1) The scribe was a professional scribe who didn't know sanskrit but was
just copying existing errors or copying a difficult to read manuscript.?
or
2) It wasn't considered important  by the scholarly/religeous clients that
he conflated v and b because they were used to that and in any case they
knew sanskrit so it wasn't important to them?
or
3) Something else?

Link to the complete manuscript
https://archive.org/download/BagulaMukhiPanchangamAlm27Shlf16025DevanagariTantra/Bagula%20Mukhi%20Panchangam_Alm_27_shlf_1_6025_Devanagari%20-%20Tantra.pdf


Harry Spier


On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 5:24 AM Philipp Maas <philipp.a.maas at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Dominik and Harry,
> Determining “exactly what the MS says” may sometimes be a less
> straightforward task than it may seem. Frequently, transcribing requires
> interpreting. To quote Walter Slaje:
>
> “The ambiguity of some characters of the Śāradā script that are almost,
> or in many cases actually, homographic makes reference to the lexicon,
> grammar, and syntax now and then a necessary condition for the
> interpretation of a character. In any case, an interactive process of
> script deciphering and textual understanding is required.”
> (My rough translation of Slaje, Walter (1993). *Śāradā
> <https://www.dropbox.com/s/602wzzrp7c5uf52/Slaje_Sarada_1993.pdf?dl=0>.
> Deskriptiv-synchrone Schriftkunde zur Bearbeitung kaschmirischer
> Sanskrit-Manuskripte auf der Grundlage von Kuśalas
> Ghaṭakharpara-Gūḍhadīpikā*. Reinbek: Verl. für Orientalistische
> Fachpublikationen, (Indische Schriften 1), p. 2: “Beding durch die
> Mehrdeutigkeit einiger nahezu oder oft auch tatsächlich homographer Zeichen
> der Śārdā-Schrift ist der Rückgriff auf Lexikon, Grammatik oder
> Satzkonstruktion mitunter eine notwendige Voraussetzung für die Deutung der
> Schriftzeichen. Es bedarf daher auf jeden Fall eines wechselwirkenden
> Verfahrens von Schriftentzifferung und Textverständnis.”)
>
> Slaje provides a list of “semi-homograph akṣara-s” in the Śāradā script,
> including *ba *and *va, *on p. 43-45.
>
> I fully agree with Dominik that orthographic peculiarities like the
> gemination of consonants after *r*, the writing of class nasals and
> anusvara, etc., should be exactly reflected in transcriptions. However, any
> manuscript transcript should be based on a benevolent interpretation of
> the Sanskrit text transmitted in the witness, containing, for example,
> *ba* or *va*, when and wherever required by the contexts.
> With best wishes,
>
> Philipp
>
>
>
> __________________________
>
> PD Dr. Philipp A. Maas
> Research Associate
> Department of Indology and Central Asian Studies
> University of Leipzig
> ___________________________
>
> https://spp1448.academia.edu/PhilippMaas
>
>
> Am Mo., 13. März 2023 um 20:42 Uhr schrieb Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info>:
>
>> In transcribing a manuscript it is best practice to transcribe
>> diplomatically exactly what the MS says.
>>
>> A second, separate file may be prepared that contains various
>> normalisations, like ba/va or śa/sa, rma/rmma, etc.
>>
>> To normalise the main transcription file takes away the opportunity to
>> study these phenomena.  And in any case, the majority of these features can
>> be manipulated with regular-expression rules, as in Saktumiva
>> <https://saktumiva.org/wiki/orthography>.  So there's no need to
>> normalise them.
>>
>> Best,
>> Dominik
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20230316/dfffb2ae/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: BINDU-VINDU.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 1003608 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20230316/dfffb2ae/attachment.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: BAGALA-VAGALA.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 4968521 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20230316/dfffb2ae/attachment-0001.pdf>