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From the Bhakti List Archives

Ravisankar S. Mayavaram • May 11, 1996 


vaNakkam / namaami

	Many interesting articles are posted to this list
and I thank all those who do this service. I have a
request regarding the posting format.  It would be more
useful if standard transliteration schemes are followed
while posting the text in Tamil or Sanskrit. It will make
it more readable and enable to identify the typographical
errors or similar mistakes. There are some standard tools
available ( like ITRANS) to convert the transliterated
text to native fonts, which will make it more readable.

	Many of you may be aware of ongoing electronic
texts projects, for instance you can find details of
sanskrit projects in

 ftp://jaguar.cs.utah.edu/private/sanskrit/sanskrit.html

you might find similar information about tamil projects
in

http://dcwww.epfl.ch/icp/ICP-2/tamil.html
or
http://tamil.math.utk.edu/

Whatever that is being posted can go into these projects(
with little additional effort).

There are many transliteration schemes available. For
example I follow the madurai scheme for thamizh

======================================================================
			Madurai Transliteration Scheme

uyir (vowels)		: a aa i ee u oo e E ai o O au q
mey (consonants)	: k NG c NY t N th n^ p m y r l v z L R n
maaRRu 			: A=aa; I=ee; U=oo; g=k; s=ch=c; d=t; b=p;
			  zh=z; nj= NYc; nk=NGk; nt=Nt; nth=n^th;
======================================================================


and ITRANS for saMskR^itaM
======================================================================
			   I T R A N S  4.0

	    T R A N S L I T E R A T I O N   S C H E M E 
======================================================================
Vowels:   
	a aa(A) i ii(I) u uu(U) R^i R^I  L^i L^I e ai o au aM aH

Consonants:
	k kh g gh N^
	ch chh j jh JN
	T Th D Dh N
	t th d dh n
	p ph b bh m
	y r l v sh shh
	s h L 

	.n or M produces anusvaara	.a  produces avagraha,
	.h  produces haLa.nta		 H  produces visarga

  Only a dot . or a vertical line | produce a da.nDa , \. produces
just a dot (puurNaviraama), a.c and aa.c produce ardhachandra as in
cat and talk.  The vowels need to be added after each consonent,
unless one wants joDaakshara.  No other letters (upper or lower cases)
are allowed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For instance the signature file of this mail follows the
ITRANS scheme.  I do not claim that these transliteration
schems are the best ones. There may be better schemes,
following any consistent scheme would help the readers to
a great extent. This is my humble request.

--
Ravi                                                      msr@tamu.edu
======================================================================
kaarpNyadoshhopahata svabhaavaH 
pR^ichchhaami tvaaM dharmasammuuDhachetaH |
yat.h shreyaH syat.h nishchitaM bruuhi tanme
shishhyaH te ahaM shaadhi maaM tvaaM prapannaM || 2-7 ||
					     shriimad bhagavad giitaa 	
======================================================================