Dear Dominik and all,

While working recently on a Navya-nyāya MS, I came across a similar situation. In addition to obvious sandhi errors and hiatuses within sentences, there was another issue. The MS is written as a single period, so on order to identify different sentences I had to break the original sandhis on their boundaries.

In my transliteration, I chose to indicate these corrections using a specific type of brackets.

Though, for the convenience of the reader, would it be better just to correct the text without further indications?

This lack of daṇḍas in the text and hiatuses inside sentences made me wonder in what manner the scribes traditionally worked. Did they write under dictation, this representing a monotonous speech with occasional pauses?

Best,

Evgeniya
--
Отправлено из мобильного приложения Яндекс Почты
 

Кому: "Jan E.M. Houben" <jemhouben@gmail.com>;
Копия: Indology <indology@list.indology.info>;
Тема: [INDOLOGY] unsandhied juncture;
13:30, 19 июля 2026 г., Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info>:

I think "the condition saṃhitāyām" mentioned by Jan, and implicitly by Jonathan, is the key.  Authors and reciters have had different allegiances, so to speak, to this rule, but it's clear enough that for Pāṇini, sandhi rules were conditional upon contiguous speech.  Letters transform when they touch each other, sonically, not when they do. not (nobody says "do.  n't").

In the Nepalese MSS that I've been working with over the last few years, dating from ninth-sixteenth centuries, there is a variety of scribal (or spoken?) usage in all the directions that have been mentioned.  Very often there is an anusvāra at the end of a śloka, suggesting rapid recitation with the following śloka.  Sometimes, but more rarely, there are hiatuses inside a sentence.  And so on.  The attitude to sandhi application seems quite variable.  I'm sorry to say, however, that I haven't kept note of these variations.

Best wishes,

Dominik

--

Dominik Wujastyk, Professor Emeritus, Classical Indian History

University of Alberta

"The University of Alberta is committed to the pursuit of truth, 

the advancement of learning, and the dissemination of knowledge 

through teaching, research and other scholarly and creative activities and service."

-- Collective Agreement 3.01

Current research: The Suśruta Project

Journal: History of Science in South Asia

_______________________________________________
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