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Jamie JHUBBARD at EARN.JPNCUN10
Fri Nov 1 20:08:40 UTC 1991


Thank you Jonathan. I was going to say   something similar, and I heartily
second your comments. I would perhaps even go further. It has been some 15
years since I studied Sanskrit, and even then the script was not much of an
issue. I surely could not get very far if I had to deal with Devanagari. The
great Dictionaries are fun, but the Worterbuch or even Monier-Williams slows
me down 'cause of the script...and I could maybe even find some flash cards...
But I would really just walk next door and ask the Sanskrit specialist. But
since she is always busy, I hesitate. . . Actually, though, I do care about
whether tathaagatagarbha is a bahuvriihi or tatpurusha (sp??-- sorry, no
time to remember spelling at the moment) and it is sometimes important for
me to check a Sanskrit edition, which I can do easily and meaningfully if
it is Romanized form. I admit I am a baby in these matters, but if the only
reason to use Devanagari is male macho (to be a man rather than a boy) than
I vote against. If the question is PC-ness, that is another issue with perhaps
more merit, though the comments about Buddhist texts not being originally
in Devanagari would seem to count against at least those texts being presented
in a   vernacular script (I believe that is what librarians use to refer to
a "local" script). Chinese and Japanese, at least, are another case altogether,
of course, and perhaps the comparison is worthwhile.  Oh well. Jamie.






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