The use of word dividers is very widespread in manuscripts from Northern India and Nepal in general—for instance, it is developed to a high degree of exactness in Jaina manuscripts. As to the use of blank spaces between words, my impression is that blank spaces were used to separate syntactic units in prose or verses already early on, but not for single words systematically.

 

Best wishesm

 

Camillo

 

 

---

 

Dr Camillo A. Formigatti

John Clay Sanskrit Librarian

 

Bodleian Libraries 

The Weston Library

Broad Street, Oxford

OX1 3BG

 

Email: camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Tel. (office): 01865 (2)77208
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From: victor davella [mailto:vbd203@googlemail.com]
Sent: 15 May 2018 18:06
To: McComas Taylor <McComas.Taylor@anu.edu.au>; indology@list.indology.info
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?

 

For one specific case of markers used to indicate word boundaries, see Hahn's 2007 edition of the Kapphiṇābhyudaya pp. 4ff. I have also found them in other MSS, mostly from Nepal.

 

All the Best,

Victor

 

 

 

On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 6:02 AM, McComas Taylor via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear colleagues

 

A student has asked me a questions I cannot answer:  'When did scribes begin to insert spaces between words in Sanskrit manuscripts?'

 

Can any of you learned folk help us out?

 

Thanks in advance

 

McComas

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

McComas Taylor, SFHEA
Associate Professor, Reader in Sanskrit
College of Asia and the Pacific
The Australian National University, Tel. + 61 2 6125 3179
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/mccomasanu/

Address: Baldessin Building 4.24, ANU, ACT 0200

 

Ask me about my new project:

'Translating the Viṣṇu Purāṇa'

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