Thank you to Howard Resnick, Charles DiSimone, and Tom Cahill who confirmed off-list that he has seen the same thing in N. Indian manuscripts.
Harry Spier


On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 11:31 AM Howard Resnick <hr@ivs.edu> wrote:
In Bengali, and even in the standard Bengali-English Samsad dictionary, b and v are given as the same letter.


On Feb 25, 2023, at 9:14 AM, Charles DiSimone via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear Harry Spier,

I'm not sure when ba became a dedicated akṣara within the Devanāgarī script, but what you describe has been the norm for Brahmic script manuscript transmissions over history.

All my best,
Charles

Dr. Charles DiSimone
Department of Languages and Cultures
Ghent University


On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 2:57 PM Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Dear list members,
I'm looking at a manuscript from the Ragunath Temple Sanskrit Manuscript Library, Jammu, j&K. The text is  ajñānadvāntadīpikā by somanātha
The link to the pdf on archive.org is:

Looking at the first few lines it looks to me like the scribe is using the devanagari letter  for both and ब.  Is that common practice in devanagari manuscripts from kashmir?
Thanks,
Harry Spier

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology