Doubt about writing " Uddhava "

[Anand Ghurye]

Dear Sir ,

When we write the name Uddhava , we attach the dha to da . In the phonetic spelling the Da is halant while the Dha is complete . So is the above way the right way of writing Uddhava ?

Thanks in advance .

Regards ,

Anand Ghúryé

*Training*Development*Synectics
Space Page : 9820489416

[Hnbhat B.R.]

On 1/6/15, Anand Ghurye <anand....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Sir ,
>
> When we write the name Uddhava , we attach the dha to da . In the phonetic
> spelling the Da is halant while the Dha is complete . So is the above way
> the right way of writing Uddhava ?
>

I could not understand your question. The style of writing letters,
depends on the script used.

ud+dha-va is the correct form in roman spelling.

उद्धव is the correct form writing in Devanagari.

What is your doubt?

[अभ्यंकरकुलोत्पन्नः श्रीपादः]

While I agree with Dr. Bhat that style of writing will depend upon the script being used, I would like to add from my school days' memory.

In the city library at Jamkhandi, there used to be a magazine, from Vardha, I think it was started by Vinobaji. Rather he was the editor. In that magazine all conjoined consonants used to be printed separately and in the order of pronunciation. So उद्धव would be printed as उद् धव. I am leaving space between द् and ध. But it seems परंधाम प्रकाशन had type-settings to print द् and ध separately, though alongside of each other. Possibly it was Vinobaji's style to ensure pronunciation in the right order. So will ब्रह्म be ब् र ह् म That was a little painful for reading, at least for me.

Coming to different scripts, in Tamil uddhava, would be written as uttava, because they have only 't' for t, th, d, dh. உத்தவ

In Kannada, although द् would be written before ध्,  द् will be prominent and ध् will have a level like that of a subscript.

सस्नेहम्

अभ्यंकरकुलोत्पन्नः श्रीपादः ।
"श्रीपतेः पदयुगं स्मरणीयम् ।"

[Hnbhat B.R.]

In Devanagari, itself, j+nh or  j + ñ ज् + ञ् has got a conjunct form, ज्ञ where you could not identify the parts or which part precedes or which part follows. One can say only ज् is the only form in isolation and ज is the form j+a and in क्य you can see the first part halved, while it can be written क्-य which could not be typed in without space without the conjunct form, whereas it could be written kya as three letters are distinguishable. In the conjunct, क्ष क्त the parts are not visible, whether k+t+a are written in order as in roman, as kṣa or kSa or ksha, used in roman script. In the last, k-s-h-a four letters are used, whereas in the first and second, three letters are used, while in Sanskrit, the conjunct form is considered as distinctly a single conjunct letter for all purpose and in alphabets also they are generally given as two distinct letters in the alphabet, along with with, त्र in basic text books. So it is the convenience and availability availability of the letters used in a script in writing the language Sanskrit and there is no question of correctness in  general. The last conjuncts create problem for identifying their correct pronunciation, and ज्ञ is written many times, jnhya, gya, etc. without USING IAST roman script, which has got only ñ single letter jña three letters of English alphabet.

[धनंजय वैद्य]

There is justifiable confusion regarding the glyph/symbol for the द्+ध ligature. This confusion is seen not only amongst early students, but also among adults who are very fluent in their Devanagari writing.

This confusion comes from ambiguity in the horizontal-joining and vertical-joining methods of generating ligature-symbols.

For most consonant combinations, there is no confusion. But sadly, द्+ध  is visually confusing.

(a) When the non-final consonant-symbol of a ligature has a symbol with a vertical line at the right side (ग, म, भ), a horizontal joining is preferred (ग्म, म्ल, भ्य) with the first sounding symbol to the left, and the next sounding symbol to the right.
(b) When the non-final consonant-symbol of a ligature does not have a clear vertical line at the right side (ट, ड) then a vertical joining is preferred (ट्ठ, ड्ढ - not sure if this came out vertical in your font, but check printed books), with the first sounding symbol to the top, and the next sounding symbol below.
(c) There are a large number of ligatures where both the horizontal or vertical joining are in seen in print. E.g., both horizontal or vertical joined versions of क्क न्न च्च क्व may be found in printed books. It depends on the aesthetic preference of the writer or the community. In Marathi, for example, vertical joining is preferred when there both options are available.

Now for the problem of द्+ध versus the theoretical possibility of ध् + द, a combination that is grammatically never found in Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Konkani.
द्+ध : Because the symbol द does not have a clear vertical bar to its right side, a vertical joining is preferred, so द्ध; the earlier sounding "द" has its symbol above and the later sounding ध has its symbol below. Notice carefully that they are not on the same horizontal level.The little vertical line at the bottom on the joint symbol does not belong to the द, but it belongs to the ध.

The theoretical ध् + द. Because ध has a clear vertical line to its right, a horizontal joining would have been theoretically preferred. (Again, there would never be a practical occasion for writing this ligature, except in theoretical discussions like this one.) So then you would get the horizontal joining ध्द. But look carefully, in this theoretical ligature symbol, the ध is clearly at the same horizontal level as the following द. If you do not look carefully, you may think that this theoretical ध्द (ध् + द, same horizontal level) looks identical to the  commonly used  द्ध (द्+ध two vertical levels)

All we have to remember is that the द्+ध ligature is preferentially vertical-joined, and the vertical joining is as per the usual rule: first consonant on top, next consonant below.
And that ध् + द is never to be practically found in Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi or Konkani (don't know about Nepali, I would be shocked if Nepali had it). So the question of getting confused about this horizontal joining never arises in practice.

So while writing -ddha- in "uddhava", write द on top and ध below it (both symbols written smaller, to fit within the line spacing).

The Marathi language department of the government of Maharashtra has a helpful guidance document regarding these ligatures, but it may not be of interest for the samskrita group.

Regards,
Dhananjay

[Naresh Cuntoor]

Perhaps a way to avoid confusion is to write it as द्.ध without the dot in-between?

Naresh

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "samskrita" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to samskrita+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to sams...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/samskrita.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[धनंजय वैद्य]

People have a choice between writing द्.ध and द्ध. Of course, with costs and benefits. The prior would make it unambiguous, but make a person appear as though they did not learn a symbol/glyph that other educated people learned. It also would have to come with a footnote about the exceptional "." symbol, which has no parallel meaning in any other glyph of devanagari script.

It would also make the writer appear rather the lazy foreigner who did not want to learn writing symbols carefully, and didn't care that people found their writing weird.

All of these social embarrassments can be avoided by carefully taking the time to write the द and the ध vertically, which makes the ligature symbol fully regular.

Writing according to the rule doesn't even have the cost of learning an exception. Even though writing carefully is a time cost, it is not a terrible and wasted cost. Careless writing could lead to many other symbols that would confuse the reader.

So to me, the choice is clear. The cost-benefit analysis is that learning to write one symbol according to the rule is better than making up an exceptional and unknown-to-natives द्.ध symbol.

धनंजय

[Anand Ghurye]

Dear Dr. Bhat ,

When it is written as
 उद्धव

I believe it needs to be pronounced as उध दव ( dha comes prior to da )

Whereas it is actually pronounced as उद धव

We can compare it with
अन्तर    ऊन्मत्त  ( sorry for the big U )

the Na is pronounced first then the Ta or Ma .

Please clarify .

Thanks in advance.

 
 

Regards ,

Anand Ghúryé

*Training*Development*Synectics
Space Page : 9820489416

[Subrahmanian R]

Respected Scholars

I fully subscribe to the observations and views of Sri Dhananjay. But in some software for typing devanagari letters using Roman keyboard, like Baraha, not all compound consonants are provided for. For example dya is reproduced as अद्य, मद्य etc. Further, I have observed in some places (in UP) in combinations like vda or bda (as in शब्द), the position of the halanta va or ba in the hands of some painters goes down from the left making it dba or dva instead of bda and vda.

 

For us in Tamil Nadu, our mother tongue has no provision for any compound consonant, except the occasional क्ष. All compound consonants are to be represented as in baraha adya madya etc. Even क्ष is generally represented by the combination of tcha (ट्च) as in काक्षि written as काट्चि*. A sanskrit primer says that though क्ष is a combination of क and ष, in anticipation of the moordhanya ष, क's position is shifted from kantha. That is why it is given a different symbol instead of the two components. Similarly, Dr Bhatt was pointing out the variations in ज्ञ, its symbol different from the two components ज and ञ and varying transliterations from different regions.

 

*To the little extent I know, while English and Sanskrit are rich in compound consonants Indian Regional languages shun compound consonants except very few combinations. The combination of four consonants in English as in instrument or five in Sanskrit as in कार्त्स्न्य are possible only in these languages. Even in Hindi with a large Sanskrit background दुग्ध becomes दूध, अग्नि becomes आग and चन्द्र becomes चान्द. चन्द्र is चन्दा in Telugu (and in older Hindi in some parts) and चन्दिरन् in Tamil. The combination of three consonants ndr is not retained in any of these languages.

Regards

R Subrahmanian

[Anand Ghurye]

Thanks Friends for your help .

I was unaware of the distinction between the horizontal joining and vertical joining - or rather the distinction it brings to pronunciation  . Thanks Mr. Vaidya . Now the idea is clear .

Regards ,

Regards ,

Anand Ghúryé

*Training*Development*Synectics
Space Page : 9820489416

[Naresh Cuntoor]

The dot was just to ensure that the d and dha appear distinct in my email. One would write ddha without a dot in between, i.e., द्<nospace>ध.

In hand written text, I have seen some writers using ट्.ट instead of ट्ट (again, ignore the dot in between). So I don't think it's entirely unprecedented.

The interest of clarity, it seems to me should trump perceived embarrassments. Case in point,  brahma vs. bramha, vanhi vs. vahni, etc. If indeed, as most people say it is pronounced as bram-ha, why not write it as ब्रम्ह ? Tangential, I know.

Naresh

धनंजय

[Arvind_Kolhatkar]

I think the word is correctly written and pronounced as उद्धव उद् धव.  In द्ध what you see is half द्, shown as द minus its tail.  It is followed by ध, which actually uses as its दण्ड part the apparent tail of द.  

Half द is always shown like this when another consonant comes after it as   This happens in only five other situations -  द्द, द्म, द्य द्र द्व.  (Due to the inability of the typing software it is not possible to render द्य and द्व in the exact manner in which these are written but they can be seen in several printed works.)  In all these situations the tail of द is missing,  making it द्, and the next letter is full, its upstanding दण्ड taking the place of the missing tail of द.

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, January 09, 2015.

[धनंजय वैद्य]

One would need to fight that fight with पाणिनि, who made the rule "झलां जश् झशि ।" without exception, and tell पाणिनि that he forgot to note the exception for उध्-दव*. While we are at it, also blame कात्यायन and पतञ्जलि, who fixed every itsy-bitsy lacuna that पाणिनि had missed, that they forgot this biggie!

*If there ever were a word that started off as उध्-दव, this rule would necessarily convert it to उद्-दव before it could be a final usable form. Of course, what "उध्-दव" could mean in संस्कृत is mysterious.

[G S S Murthy]

Usage -often but not always- backed by logic determines how a compound sound is represented in a script. Even today there would be different ways of pronouncing ज्ञ depending on where one hails from.

Regards

Murhy

On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 7:09 AM, धनंजय वैद्य <deejay...@gmail.com> wrote:

One would need to fight that fight with पाणिनि, who made the rule "झलां जश् झशि ।" without exception, and tell पाणिनि that he forgot to note the exception for उध्-दव*. While we are at it, also blame कात्यायन and पतञ्जलि, who fixed every itsy-bitsy lacuna that पाणिनि had missed, that they forgot this biggie!

*If there ever were a word that started off as उध्-दव, this rule would necessarily convert it to उद्-दव before it could be a final usable form. Of course, what "उध्-दव" could mean in संस्कृत is mysterious.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "samskrita" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to samskrita+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to sams...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/samskrita.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

My web site : http://murthygss.tripod.com/index.htm
and also my Sanskrit blog :

http://simplesanskrit.blogspot.com/

http://gssmurthy.blogspot.com

[Vardhan Taltaje]

Is it possible at all to pronounce उध्-दव naturally? 

On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 7:09 AM, धनंजय वैद्य <deejay...@gmail.com> wrote:

One would need to fight that fight with पाणिनि, who made the rule "झलां जश् झशि ।" without exception, and tell पाणिनि that he forgot to note the exception for उध्-दव*. While we are at it, also blame कात्यायन and पतञ्जलि, who fixed every itsy-bitsy lacuna that पाणिनि had missed, that they forgot this biggie!

*If there ever were a word that started off as उध्-दव, this rule would necessarily convert it to उद्-दव before it could be a final usable form. Of course, what "उध्-दव" could mean in संस्कृत is mysterious.

[धनंजय वैद्य]

> Is it possible at all to
> pronounce उध्-दव naturally?

"Naturally" probably depends on language context. This pronunciation is not available (not "natural") in any संस्कृत word. Nor in many of the modern संस्कृत derived languages, inside of a single morpheme. But it may happen in other contexts. It may be heard perhaps in हिंदी, with ध् at the end of one word, with a द-initial word following in a compound (so no pause in between). Someone trying to clearly enunciate बोधदाता in हिंदी, after the obligatory पदान्त-अ-लोप (schwa deletion) would say बोध्-दाता. Thus the pronunciation is possible. However, even in हिंदी, if spoken at normal speed, the pronunciation would morph into बोद्-दाता.

[धनंजय वैद्य]

Regarding ह्म/ह्न versus म्ह/ह्न.
This would depend on the language. Fortunately for us पाणिनि in his सूत्रs "हे मपरे वा", "नपरे नः" telks us: in the language he was describing the ह् sound preceded the म/न sounds.
In some of the early प्राकृत languages the pronunciation order flipped - and the writing is also appropriately flipped in say, पालि. (E.g. the पालि words तुम्हे, तण्हा, etc).
Unfortunately, in many modern languages, the संस्कृत writing came back, even though the pronunciation is प्राकृत-style.
In मराठी, for the last hundred years or so, since the grammarian दामले, the म्ह/न्ह writing is standard. But this is not the case in हिंदी. We have to be careful, there, though. In the strictly correct standardized version of हिंदी, spoken only by a few television newscasters and pandits, the pronunciation is as in संस्कृत.
In any case, this is a संस्कृत discussion group. We have the choice of saying that our प्राकृतized (mis)pronunciations of संस्कृत should change our writing*; or the alternative is to accept that the संस्कृत writing ह्म/ह्न is appropriate for the पाणिनीय version of the language.
*Then we would also need to modify the writing of कृति in संस्कृत to क्रिति/क्रुति as per the common प्राकृतized pronunciations, throw away one of the श/ष symbols because most people pronounce them the same (this adopted in standard Goan कोंकणी writing). But I believe that it would be better to learn that ऋ was indeed pronounced independently, and श/ष had different pronunciations in classical संस्कृत, and we should leave the writing of संस्कृत as is. We should, however, change or regularize the writing of modern languages as per modern pronunciation.

[Naresh Cuntoor]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 12:34 PM, धनंजय वैद्य <deejay...@gmail.com> wrote:

Regarding ह्म/ह्न versus म्ह/ह्न.
This would depend on the language. Fortunately for us पाणिनि in his सूत्रs "हे मपरे वा", "नपरे नः" telks us: in the language he was describing the ह् sound preceded the म/न sounds.

But in above sutras, the starting point is ..म् ह्म (or equivalently with 'n') . The म् is not relevant to the question of brahma.

In ह्मलयति or the other standard example, is it even possible to pronounce म्हलयति ? At best it would be उम्हलयति or मलयति, no?

Whereas in brahma, ब्रह्म and ब्रम्ह both lend themselves to distinct pronunciation.

It seems to me that trying to apply "हे मपरे वा" would be putting the cart before the horse.

Naresh

[धनंजय वैद्य]

The authour of the उणादि सूत्रs gives the etymology of ब्रह्मन् as बृंहेर्नोऽच्च (मनिन्) । 4.146, i.e., in the root बृंह् (बृन्ह्), replace the intermediate न् with अ, and then add the termination मनिन्, which comes to ब्रह्+(the प्रत्यय) मन्.
Do we have any basis of believing that the author of the उणादि सूत्रs did not actually hear the म्-sound before the ह्-sound? Quite the opposite. If the उणादि-author had heard the म् before, he would not have specifically had the nasal (न्) before the ह् replaced with a non-nasal. He could have made the सूत्र "बृंहेर् अनिन्, नोऽमुच्च ।" The fact that he deliberately asks the replacement of the nasal before the ह् with a nonnasal means that this is not an oversight, and in the final form, he did not hear any nasal sound before the ह् in ब्रह्मन्.
Sorry regarding हे मपरे, which answers someone elsewhere, at another time, who was arguing with me that the ह्म sound is not physically producible, and was never produced in संस्कृत. Obviously, you state that in the form ह्मलयति it is produced. I mistakenly thought that you also were arguing that ह्म was not "naturally produced", I apologize. So the उणादि explanation is for the specific word ब्रह्म, which you mentioned.
By the way, even other "final" forms of बृंह् and तृंह् always end up with an अनुस्वार, never with "न्ह" in पाणिनीय usage. This is discussed by various commentators on पाणिनि's "अट्कुप्वाङ्नुम्व्यवायेऽपि". I believe that in no standalone* word in पाणिनीय संस्कृत does ह् appear as the second-or-later consonant of any conjunct. (*why "standalone"? Because it may be the second when two words are said in sequence, as in "किम्ह्मलयति".)

[Naresh Cuntoor]

I wasn't suggesting that hma in brahma or in hmalayati cannot be pronounced as you have noted in the second half of the email. So let's set that aside.

The uNAdi sutra is indeed relevant sutra to this part of the thread. Couldn't the same sutra be used to support the bram-ha pronunciation? I say this because, we have

बृंहेः नः अत् च

Copying मनिन्  from the previous sutra,
बृहेः नः मनिन् अत् च

In other words, isn't the नुम् being replaced by both मनिन् and अत्

If only अत् was the intended आदेश, wouldn't it have been बृंहेः नः अत्, and मनिन् sutra appearing after that with some suitable modification?

Naresh

[धनंजय वैद्य]

Ah. A non-final pratyaya. This will be too much of an innovation. Allowing such alternative parsings would destroy many सूत्रs.

[धनंजय वैद्य]

Also, I don't quite get it: बृ(नुम्)ह् -> ?बृ(अ मन्)ह् -> ब्रमन्ह्
?बृ(मन् अ)ह् -> बृमनह्

The first would be an extremely unusual word with two consonants at the end, and would probably have the declensions ब्रमा, ब्रमंहौ...
The second would probably be declined बृमनद्, बृमनहौ...

So this innovation would not get the desired ब्रम्ह.

I believe the original सूत्र is pretty clear in terms of अन्वय. I don't think there is much freedom to reinterpret the traditional reading.

धनंजय

[Naresh Cuntoor]

You're right. I was thinking of manin as 'm', which is clearly wrong.

If this clearly points toward brah-ma, and no conflicting evidence points to bram-ha, it is surprising that most scholars say bram-ha (and give justification?). Do we chalk this up to prakrit influence and nothing more than that?

Naresh

[धनंजय वैद्य]

(Many of my teachers say "brahma", but most of my family members, quite well educated too, do say "bramha", as you observe.)

I think this is because of the influence of our first language, whichever modern Indian language we learned. In the prAkRtas the h+consonant is not available, bur consonant+h was seen in the derived word. As I said before, in pAli and other prakRtas, the convention is to write as they speak. But some modern Indian languages reverted in writing to the sanskRta form, even though they did not revert the pronunciation, which remained prAkRta.

We also see highly educated telugu speakers say "कमळा", hindi speakers say "गोम्ती", etc. Our mother tongues have a strong influence on our saMskRta pronunciations. It is fortunate that those of us who are multilingual know that the various modern regional pronunciations of ज्ञ (hindi ग्य, gujarati ग्न, marathi द्न्य, etc) cannot all be correct in saMskRta (and are all wrong), but a vast majority of well-educated people continue to pronounce words with ज्ञ exactly as it would be (correctly) for their mother tongues. But it is common to see well educated people who know only one modern Indian language, and saMskRta insisting that they have the correct pronunciation.

While I have managed to correct my mispronunciation of ज्ञ and ब्रह्म/चिह्न/आह्वान/आह्लाद (respective correct Marathi pronunciations being ब्रम्ह, चिन्ह, आव्हान, आल्हाद), in spite of my efforts, my accentuation of saMskRta words is pretty bad. I often incorrectly accentuate the first syllable of nouns (most saMskRta nouns are accented - as per paNini/shAntanava - on the last syllable). That again is because of transference from my mother tongue (where first-syllable accentuation is very common for the derived noun).

Dhananjay

[dhaval patel]

The discussion has wandered far from the original question.
Let's keep it focused on the question at hand.

As regards the side-discussion of 'brahma'-

This has already been discussed quite long ago in https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/samskrita/%E0%A4%AC%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%B9%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AE/samskrita/l85fCym6klM/qUrKi7qb0xcJ.

It makes sense that we continue discussion there only for sake of completeness and continuity.

To recapitulate - Dr. H N Bhat pointed out that shiksha is the proper place to look for pronunciation and not other texts. He quoted the following verse for the question at hand.
हकारं पञ्चमयैर्युक्तमन्तःस्थाभिश्च संयुतम् ।
औरस्यं तं विजानीयात्कण्ठ्यमाहुरसंयुतम् ॥१६॥

This differentiates 'aurasya' and 'kaNThya' variety of hakAra.

But whether this justifies the 'mh' pronunciation or not was still under question.

Mr. Lalitaalaalitah suggested that we look into some commentaries of shiksha, but unfortunately it was not followed up.

So, let's expore commentaries of shiksha and pratishakhya to check whether there is some hint in them regarding pronunciation of this aurasya variety.

Please post your findings in that thread.

With regards

[Naresh Cuntoor]

Sorry for the digression. (I should know better!)

At any rate, I believe the original question regarding uddhava has been answered.

Naresh

[Hnbhat B.R.]

A final note on the structure of the word. ud+dhava > ud+hava both
leave the findal form with the first consonant "d" AND the next
consonant "dh+a whether you pronounce both as dh+dha, d+dha, or dh+da
- as some of the postings suggest. It is only writing conventions of
the ligature letters and does not affect the meaning of the word.

[Vidya R]

Namaste!

Along these lines - nuance regarding - ddha and dgha -  द्ध and द्घ (this .  In both cases the second consonant is tucked under the 'd'.  Unless closely scrutinized, the difference will not be noticeable - contact made by the 'head' of the घ with the 'body' of the 'द' vs. no contact by the 'head' of the ध with the body of 'द').

In print, and when in bold, that becomes difficult to capture.  Familiarity with the word of-course helps in identifying.

shubham

vidyA