Dear list members,

Since the discussion about devanagari v and b in Kashmiri manuscripts a few months ago, I've been looking at some devanagari manuscripts from the Ragunath temple in Jammu in more detail.

In the ānandeśvarapaddhatiḥ and the bagalamukhīpañcaṅgam the scribe writes
व for ब almost all the time, but the few cases where he writes ब for ब seem deliberate.

The ānandeśvarapaddhatiḥ is the strangest case. In the whole manuscript of 206 folios there are only 4 cases where ब was written for ब There was one case of the bījamantra baṁ but the other three cases were all for declensions of the same word bahukhādaka in widely separated folios. ( bahukhādaka was also written in the manuscript as vahukhādaka 5 times).

Any explanations about why the scribe took the care to write the word bahukhādaka correctly a few times and only took the care in those places would be greatly appreciated. If anyone wants more details (link to manuscript, folio numbers etc.I can supply those .

In the bagalamukhīpañcaṅgam where the scribe writes "b" for "b" seems more understandable. Again he writes "v" for "b" most of the time. But the cases where he takes the care to write "b" for "b" are in the names of deities or words related to deities.

He wrote: bagalāmukhī 21 times (but vagalāmukhī 31 times) and bradhnā, brahmaputrī, tryaṁbaka, aṁbuja, pītāṁbarā, brahmāstra. As far as I could see he wrote "v" for "b" for the rest of the manuscript except for the bījamantra baṁ .

Thanks,

Harry Spier