Dipak Bhattacharya raises a point I've wondered about. 

1) Why wasn't (until recently) avagraha used to resolve this kind of ambiguity.

2)  Is avagraha only a written sign or is it some kind of pause in spoken Sanskrit

3) How far back does avagraha go.  To Panini, pre-Panini, post-Panini ?

Thanks,

Harry Spier

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 12:02 AM, Dipak Bhattacharya <dipak.d2004@gmail.com> wrote:

As for the original question of Mr. Harry Spier in some publications an avagraha is put to indicate a coalesced/elided अ and two for two such अs. One has मयाsदेयम् for mayā adeyam and मयाssदेयम् for mayā ādeyam.

I did not see the latter in manuscripts.

Best

DB

 

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 10:45 PM, Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear list members,

I need to show to some non-sanskritists that given a Sanskrit phrase in devanagari, that how you put in the word breaks in the transliteration can result in phrases with very different meanings.

Can any of the list members give examples of short sentences in simple sanskrit in devanagari that when the words are split  differently in the transliteration give grammatically correct Sanskrit sentences but produce Sanskrit phrases with  "radically" different meanings.

For my purposes simple Sanskrit sentences are better than more complicated Sanskrit from the literature.  And sentences that give very different meanings depending on how the words are broken up are better than more subtle differences. 

Thanks,

Harry Spier

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