[INDOLOGY] Upadhmānīya and Jihvāmūlīya

[Harry Spier]

Thank you to both Matthew Kapstein and Roland Steiner who sent me the
selection in Stenzler's Elementarbuch der Sanskrit-sprache which shows
jihvamUlIya, ardhavisarga and visarga in a printed devanagari book. See
below: aradhavisarga circled in red, jihvamUlIya circled in orange.

[image: image.png]

Harry Spier


On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 5:18 PM Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear everyone,
>
> *1) *    Thomas Burke wrote on the list in April 2000.  Apparently list
> members (and the list) were involved in developing the unicode vedic
> extensions block.
>
> Although upadhmaaniiya and jiihvaamuuliiya both have independent signs
> (termed gajakumbhaak*rti and vajraak*ti respectively [see Abhyankar's
>
> Dictionary of Sanskrit grammar, s.v., for details]), both these signs are
> commonly replaced by yet a third sign, the ardhavisarga, in grammatical texts
> printed in Nagari. If we are properly to quote these texts, without editorial
> intervention, we need the ardhavisarga in addition to the signs for
> upadhmaaniiya and jiihvaamuuliiya.  Three characters, in all, are thus
> required.
>
> Many members of this group will have first encountered  upadhmaaniiya and
> jiihvaamuuliiya in the Tantraakhyaayikaa selection in Stenzler's
> Elementarbuch der Sanskrit-sprache, which represents upadhmaaniiya by
> ardhavisarga and jiihvaamuuliiya by the vajrak*rti sign.
>
> Would it be possible for  someone send me a photograph of the Tantrākhyāyikā selection in
> Stenzler's Elementarbuch der Sanskrit-sprache .
>
> *2) *There have been discussions over the years on the list about jihvamUlIya ,
> upadhmAnIya and ardhavisarga.
>
> 1. Madhav Deshpande and others Dec. 2019
>
> 2. Anthony P. Stone and others Nov. 1996 (He was a major player  in developing
> the ISO standard for the transliteration of sanskrit).
>
> Harry Spier
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 9:37 AM Malgorzata Wielinska-Soltwedel via INDOLOGY
> <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dear Andrew,
>>
>> Sorry for the self-promotion, but you might find my article
>> ("Anspielungen auf Schriftzeichen in den traditionellen
>> Sanskrit-Grammatiken", Saddharmāmṛtam. Festschrift für Jens-Uwe Hartmann
>> zum 65. Geburtstag, 2018, pp. 527-540) useful in this context (even though
>> it's in German).
>>
>> And I would definitely argue in favour of retaining such characters in
>> the editions.
>>
>> Best,
>> Malgorzata
>>
>> --
>> Małgorzata Wielińska-Soltwedel, PhD (she/her)
>> Acta Asiatica Varsoviensia
>> Editor-in-chief
>> Head of the Department of Modern Cultures of Asia and Africa
>> Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures Polish Academy of
>> Sciences
>> Staszic Palace
>> ul. Nowy Świat 72
>> 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
>> http://www.iksiopan.pl
>>
>> *Gesendet: *Freitag, 7. November 2025 um 20:39
>> *Von: *"Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY" <indology at list.indology.info>
>> *An: *Indology <indology at list.indology.info>
>> *Betreff: *[INDOLOGY] Upadhmānīya and Jihvāmūlīya
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> I am working with a manuscript that uses upadhmānīya and jihvāmūlīya for
>> visarga before p/ph and k/kh respectively:
>>
>> [image: Screenshot From 2025-11-07 13-30-45.png]
>> [image: Screenshot From 2025-11-07 13-27-24.png]
>>
>> The script is Śāradā, but I was wondering (a) whether these letters are
>> used in printed Devanagari texts at all recently and what their forms are,
>> and (b) whether anyone can suggest a Devanagari font that implements them
>> correctly. I am wondering whether it might be worthwhile to retain these
>> signs in a (Devanagari) edition of the text, or whether I should just
>> regularize them to visarga. (The codepoints are in the Vedic Extensions
>> Unicode block, although unlike the codepoint for visarga, they are not
>> combining characters.)
>>
>> Andrew
>> _______________________________________________ INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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/20251109/c14cab0c/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Screenshot From 2025-11-07 13-30-45.png
Type: image/png
Size: 45258 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20251109/c14cab0c/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Screenshot From 2025-11-07 13-27-24.png
Type: image/png
Size: 77337 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20251109/c14cab0c/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1707252 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20251109/c14cab0c/attachment-0002.png>