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 ÄnandeÅ›varapaddhatiḥ and the bagalamukhÄ«pañcaá¹…gam the scribe writesÂ
व for ब almost all the time, but the few cases where he writes ब for ब  seem deliberate.
The ÄnandeÅ›varapaddhatiḥ 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 bÄ«jamantra baá¹ but the other three cases were all for declensions of the same word  bahukhÄdaka in widely separated folios. (
bahukhÄdaka was also written in the manuscript asÂ
vahukhÄdaka 5 times).Â
Any explanations about why the scribe took the care to write the word  bahukhÄdaka 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: bagalÄmukhÄ« 21 times (but vagalÄmukhÄ« 31 times) and bradhnÄ, brahmaputrÄ«, tryaá¹baka, aá¹buja, pÄ«tÄá¹barÄ, brahmÄstra. As far as I could see he wrote "v" for "b" for the rest of the manuscript except for the  bÄ«jamantra baá¹ .
Thanks,
Harry Spier
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