यन्मत्सद्गुरुभिः कृतं सुकविभिः श्रीरामभद्रैर्मुदा वृत्तं पञ्चपुमर्थयुक्तममलं ह्यंशांशिनो रामयोः।
तच्छ्रीभार्गवराघवीयसुमहाकाव्यं मया भक्तिमत्प्रीत्यै सङ्गणकीकृतं कुमतिना प्रस्तूयते चाद्य भोः॥
“प्रौढायां प्राञ्जलायां हृदयावर्जिकायां च शैल्यां विविधेषुच्छन्दःसु निबद्धमिदं विशालं महाकाव्यं तत्प्रणेतुर्विपश्चिदग्रगण्यस्य महाकवेर्बन्धनैपुण्यं वर्णनकौशलं छन्दःशास्त्रीयमनिर्वचनीयं नैपुण्यमपि प्रमाणयति।”
“मैं रातभर में उसे पढ़ गया क्योंकि उसके भावपक्ष के साथ उसकी काव्यकला, छन्दो-वैविध्य और भाषादक्षता के चमत्कारजनक नमूने भी अभूतपूर्व लगे ... यह काव्य जगद्गुरुजी के यशःसौध का एक शिखर है जिसे इतिहास कभी नहीं भुला सकेगा, ऐसा मेरा कहना है।”“कम्रं यस्य वपुस्तथाऽत्र शुभदं पीताम्बरं शोभते
वक्षे लम्बितमालिका सुखप्रदा पुष्पैर्नवैर्निर्मिता।
तं रामं मनसा स्मरन् स मतिमान् श्रीरामभद्रो महा-
काव्यं भार्गवराघवीयमतुलं चक्रे सुधावर्षकम्॥”
“माघे किराते ननु नैषधीये रघौ कुमारेऽपि च ये विशेषाः।
तेभ्योऽधिका जाग्रति रामभद्राचार्योद्भवे भार्गवराघवीये॥”
- The typesetting is done using Ulrich Steil's Sanskrit 2003 font, a marked visual improvement over Charles Wikner's skt package
As printing through typesetting was introduced, the scripts made a few compromises. With the coming of the computer age, we may need to make a few more compromises or compromises of a different sort. Therefore, there would be nothing wrong in using the viraama a bit more frequently if so doing we preserve the great ability of the scripts to reproduce speech accurately.
Dear Shri Misra,
I am delighted to get the good news that the extraordinary epic Śrībhārgavarāghavīyam of ;Srii-raama-bhadraacaarya is now available in electronic form.
I have one suggestion to make regarding text composition. Words such as buddhi and a:nghri should not be printed as बुिद् ध and अिङ् घ्र The printing should be बुद्् धि and अङ् घ्रि, ** unless, of course, one can print the ligatures in the normal way with the preceding consonant shortened or placed in the upper part of the resultant sign.
**(Please ignore the spaces in between. The Devanagari-Qwerty keyboard I have to use here does not enable me to print the viraama/halanta sign without leaving a space after it vacant; maybe this is my ignorance about that keyboard),
As the underlying text in my XeLaTeX source files is Unicode (no font), this is in reality a font issue rather than one of text composition. The typesetting is in Unicode, and as is the advantage with Unicode, it can be used with a wide range of fonts and easily converted to IAST, Howard Kyoto, ITRANS, et cetera. I would not need to change the text, but only the display font to fix the above. If you are able to download the PDF, the font Sanskrit 2003 being embedded in it, the conjunct ligatures are printed perfectly with the preceding consonant placed in upper part - see verses 1-2 and 1-14 on page १ (page 9) in PDF.
For the online HTML version, I have set the font as "Arial Unicode MS" since it is installed by default on Windows machines and most of our website viewers are on Windows platform. This shows "buddhi" properly but not "aṅghri" on Windows machines. As you have mentioned you are using Apple MacBook Air, they may not display correctly. I am yet to address this problem. One option I have is to list a set of fonts for the HTML version in order of priority, starting with Sanskrit 2003 and others which display the conjunct ligatures properly, and then keep Arial Unicode MS at end. Then we may advise users to install Sanskrit 2003 for best display results. Other option, of which I am not sure of, is to embed the Sanskrit 2003 font in our website as a web-font so that readers do not need to install the font. I will discuss this issue with other website volunteers and come up with a solution. It will take some time as we will use the same solution for all our HTML pages, so please bear with us. In any case, we will not need to change the composed text as it is in Unicode, which is independent of the display font or platform.
Till we resolve this, may I suggest using the PDF for best viewing results? Or please use the IAST version for online reading. I have not accessed Google Groups from MacBook Air, so I am not sure how you can download a PDF posted here, but you can download it under
I am aware that the practice you have followed is now found in a number of Devanagari publications. It should be discouraged.
I very much appreciate the contributions you make to the BVP forum.
a.a.