Transcriber’s Notes
Transliteration
In the book as printed, transliterations of Zend (Avestan), Sanskrit and other Indian languages used italics to convey phonetic information. This has been changed to the standard transliteration:
| original | e-text | |
|---|---|---|
| t, d, n, l | ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ḷ |
retroflex consonants (ḷ is used only in some Dravidian words; vocalic ḷ does not occur) |
| m, h | ṃ, ḥ | anusvara, visarga |
| s | ś | palatal sibilant |
| ri | ṛ | vocalic r |
| k, g | c, j |
Müller uses c and j in some quoted material and personal names, but italic k, g (or de-italicized k, g within italic words) in his own text. |
The retroflex sibilant ṣ is transliterated sh; this was unchanged. In correction popups, single-letter italics are shown in {braces}.
Some typographical errors have been noted, but the Sanskrit—especially longer passages—should be read with extrame caution.
The Colebrooke appendix at the end of Chapter VII uses a different transliteration system. This has been left as printed, except for one character that would not display reliably; details are at the beginning of that section.
Who’s Who
“Mr. Darwin” is generally Charles’s son George; Charles Darwin is “the father” or “Mr. Darwin, senior”. Dwarka Nath Tagore was Rabindranath (both transliterations are variable) Tagore’s grandfather. The evil Professor Whitney is William Dwight Whitney, author of the standard Sanskrit grammar (1879 and later).
Technical Note
In some browsers, the transliterated Sanskrit may display in a different font from the surrounding text. The intention was to prevent Font Substitution from using a sans-serif font for selected letters if the same letters are available in a serif font further along in the alphabet. If you don’t like this behavior, feel free to open the css file and change or /*remark-out*/ the references to font-family: serif.