The copper plate inscription (single) avagrahaḥ shows that even in the 9th century CE it could mark assimilation of at least ā + a. We cannot infer from this example, however, that double avagrahaḥ marking assimilation is an ancient usage. The only uses of double avagrahaḥ I’ve seen are in colonial period and later printed texts and in manuscripts copied from printed texts. These sources are not “quite old”.

On Mar 19, 2019, at 9:20 PM, Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 8:49 PM Elliot Stern via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

. Incidentally, the avagrahaḥ in the copper plate inscription is an instance, in Whitney’s terminology, of a hyphen. The text reads: vā’numodeta.

Does that mean the practice in some modern printed editions of using avagraha and double avagrahas to indicate the assimilations of a+a,  ā+ā, ā+a etc. is actually quite old?

Harry Spier

Elliot M. Stern

552 South 48th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19143-2029

emstern1948@gmail.com

267-240-8418

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