Thank you Elliot,
I've been going through transcriptions of a group of manuscripts from the Ragunath Temple, Jammu and in the eloquent words of Charles DiSimone who replied offlist in describing some Nepalese manuscripts, its a mishmash.

Some don't have have avagraha. Some have one or two in a whole manuscript and some use avagraha.  Where manuscripts use avagraha to elide a afte e or o they also use avagraha to indicate ā+a .

But in some cases I'm finding avagraha in places strange places. I've checked these following cases against the actual manuscripts which are in archive.org.  For example:
dakṣiṇāmūrtisaṁhitā 
ऋषिऽस्याद्दक्षिणामूर्तिर्गायत्रीछंद उच्यते ।। 4 ।। folio 21a
अंते जीवऽशिवस्या तु विद्या वरुण पूजिता ।। 43 ।। folio 55b

 kaulārcanadīpikā
 लोकोयंऽजुगुप्सिति folio 43b
निःसंग एव मोक्षऽस्याद्दोषाः सर्वे च संगजाः । folio 57a

mudrāprakāśaḥ 
शिखयागालिनीं मुद्रामऽर्धस्यो परिचालयेत् । folio 11a
अनामा मध्यमे अंगुष्टेन स्पृशेदित्यऽपानमुद्रा ।। 2 ।। folio 18a
स्यादऽपानहुतौ मुद्रा ।। 2 ।। folio 21a
मध्यापृष्टेंऽगुष्टौ मध्या क्रोडे स्थितौ कामः काम इति काममुद्रेत्यर्थः ।। 19 ।। folio 30a

Any explanation for the use of avagraha in these cases would be appreciated.

If anyone wants to look at the actual manuscript I can provide the images for these cases.


Harry Spier


On Sat, May 6, 2023 at 10:18 AM Elliot Stern <emstern1948@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Harry,

The use of avagraha to mark elision of an initial short a is not usual in Sanskrit mss. MacDonell,  for example,  says in his Sanskrit Grammar for Students (page 5):

The elision of अ a at the beginning of a word is marked in

European editions with the sign ऽ called Avaagraha ('separation'); e.g. तेऽपि te 'pi for ते अपि te pi.


Best wishes,

Elliot

On May 5, 2023, at 9:14 PM, Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear list members,
I'm looking at the manuscript ajñānadhvāntadīpikā by somanāthaḥ 
As far as I can tell there are no avagrahas in the manuscript. 
For example if you look at the end of line 5 on the attached 1st folio
The end of verse 5 is संन्यासाःसप्रयोगाश्चवक्ष्यन्तेत्रसमासतः ५  
Anirban Dash (and several others pointed out that this should be 
संन्यासाःसप्रयोगाश्चवक्ष्यन्तेऽत्रसमासतः ५ 
As far as I can see there are no avagrahas  anywhere in the manuscript.
Is this normal or unusual for Kashmiri manuscripts not to use avagraha.

The manuscript can be downloaded from egangotri on archive.org from  https://archive.org/details/AgyanDhvantaDeepikaShriSomnath4966Alm22Shlf4DevanagariTantra_201708

Thanks,
Harry Spier
<VERSE 5.pdf>
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