Thanks to Tim Lubin. Yes. "ta" and "bha" are similar enough in some specimens of Sharada to be misread for each other. So, the point made by Prof. Slaje stands. 

I have checked as many words ending in -garbha in Einoo's book as I could. Yes, they would support the emendation to -garbha.

Helpful responses were also received from Tim Cahill and Bindu Bhatt. Thanks to them as well for clearing my doubts. I withdraw the suggestion to emend the text to -garga. Although that emendation would also have been transcriptionally probable at a certain stage, the support for it is not as many-sided as for -garbha.

a.a.



On 2014-02-08, at 5:23 PM, Lubin, Tim wrote:

-garbha as a name suffix seems common enough among authors of Tantric texts, or from Tantra-influenced milieux.  A quick search through Genesis and Development of Tantrism, ed. Shingo Einoo, (Kyoto, 2009) yields many examples, including a Nārāyaṇagarbha.

For the graphic similarities cited, these samples are from the Ojha publication Ashok cites:
<Screen Shot 2014-02-08 at 8.01.36 PM.png>

These are 16th c. Sharada examples from Plate XXXI of the same (the second, /bha/, is not necessarily closed)
<Screen Shot 2014-02-08 at 7.59.42 PM.png>
<Screen Shot 2014-02-08 at 8.00.00 PM.png>
Compare also these, from p. 62 (on Śāradā) of Hemarāj Śākya's _Nepāla Lipi-Prakāśa_:
<Screen Shot 2014-02-08 at 8.20.34 PM.png>
Certainly close enough to me mistaken given natural variability.

Also, consider the ta and bha rows in the attached chart, especially for the scripts listed as Vartula, Nepali, and Nandinagari.