From: Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh@umich.edu>
Date: Thu, Jun 6, 2024 at 6:43 PM
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] CORRECTION: Writing anusvara with avagraha in devanagari (Harry Spier)
To: Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier@gmail.com>


Dear Harry,

     I have a significant memory of the absence of Avagraha in a Sanskrit text. Around 1974, I was reading the text of Śaunakīya-Caturādhyāyikā, a Prātiśākhya of the Atharvaveda, with a student of mine. This was Whitney's edition based on a single manuscript available in the 1850s. One sūtra describes the articulatory effort in the pronunciation of vowels as "vivr̥tam svarāṇāṃ" Open in the case of vowels. The next sūtra in Whitney's manuscript read "ekespr̥ṣṭam". Whitney's reading was "eke spr̥ṣṭam." Some describe it as being "contact." Whitney wondered how some could believe in this ridiculous view. While reading this text with my student, I suspected that the original reading of the rule was not "eke spr̥ṣṭam", but "eke+aspr̥ṣṭam", namely that the effort in the case of vowels according to some was "non-contact." Evidently, the text was referring to two views: open/non-contact. 
     Later, over the next 20+ years, I collected about 22 manuscripts of this text, and they proved my suspicion to be correct, as some manuscripts did indeed use an Avagraha in this sūtra. The introduction of Avagraha must have been done with the purpose of removing ambiguity in the text. But this use of Avagraha and this meaning of Avagraha is unknown to old grammars, Prātiśākhyas and Śikṣās.

Madhav

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Thu, Jun 6, 2024 at 2:45 PM Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Thank you Piotr, very clear. And thank you to Elaine Fisher and Matthew Kapstein who replied off list.
Harry Spier


On Thu, Jun 6, 2024 at 4:52 PM Piotr Balcerowicz via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear Harry,

All printed editions reproduce the passage is as: सागरोंऽशुश्च, e.g. the Poona edition:

image.png

Avagraha is historically introduced later. Anusvāra is already represented in the Aśokan Brāhmī script, which means it is an old concept, and represented thereafter in various scripts, whereas svagraha is introduced only much later to Indic scripts. Early manuscripts  frequently do not contain the avagraha sign at all. So, in historically earlier period (when avagraha was no yet there) we would expect to read सागरोंशुश्च, in which the anusvāra would obviously be written over the preceding akṣara. The insertion of the avagraha into this sequence of akṣaras (सागरोंऽशुश्च) should therefore not change much and the anusvāra should remain in its (historically) original place (where it would have been, before the inventions of avagraha).

Regards,

Piotr

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://balcerowicz.eu/


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier@gmail.com>
To: indology@list.indology.info
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2024 09:16:36 -0400
Subject: [INDOLOGY] Writing anusvara with avagraha in devanagari
Dear list members,
What is the correct way to write anusvara with avagraha. 
For example in Mahābharata 03,003,024c 
 varuṇaḥ sāgaro 'ṁśuś ca jīmūto jīvano 'rihā
Should it be written  as सागरोऽंशुश्च or सागरोंऽशुश्च


Thanks,

Harry Spier




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier@gmail.com>
To: indology@list.indology.info
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2024 09:20:25 -0400
Subject: [INDOLOGY] CORRECTION: Writing anusvara with avagraha in devanagari
Dear list members,
I meant to write:
What is the correct way to write anusvara with avagraha in devanagari.. 
For example in Mahābharata 03,003,024c   varuṇaḥ sāgaro 'ṁśuś ca jīmūto jīvano 'rihā
Should it be written  as सागरोऽंशुश्च or सागरोंऽशुश्

Thanks,

Harry Spier


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