Dear Prof. Olivelle,

That symbol is the so-called bhale symbol, which

is associated with (but probably not restricted to,

s. Balbir et al. (2006) mentioned below) Jaina

manuscript culture.

The only source I can mention at the moment is:

G. Bhattacharya, "The bhale symbol of the Jainas",

Berliner lndologische Studien 8 (1995), pp. 201-228

(which, incidentally, is also referred to in

Balbir et al. (2006), Catalogue of the Jain Manuscripts

of the British Library, vol. 1, p. 56).

Best of luck to your student for his research.

Best wishes,

Gaia Pintucci

On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 6:18 PM, Olivelle, J P via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

A student working on this text called “Kālajñanm” asked me about the three letters at the very beginning that precede “śrīgaṇeṣāy namaḥ”. I myself could not make it out, but thought it may be “arpaṇa” — but that is an educated guess, taking the first letter as “a” second as “p” (although it does not look like it), and the third an retroflex “ṇ”. Any help appreciated. Perhaps these letters are not standard Devanagari.

Thanks.

Patrick

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