Dear list members,

I asked for an explanation of the sandhi namaḥ nārāyaṇāya becomes namo nārāyaṇāya .

I.e why aḥ before a soft consonent or a becomes o .

If it is of interest to anyone, I've found a linguistic explanation of this in W.S. Allen's book:

THE THEORETICAL, PHONETIC, AND HISTORICAL BASES OF WORD-JUNCTION IN SANSKRIT on pages 70-71 .

Harry Spier