Codex Sinaiticus is online

A 4'th century manuscript of the Christian Bible is now available online. The pieces scattered in four libraries are now digitized and made available for free through the internet. The manuscript is written in nice and clear Greek characters and the language is also Greek.

The project to make this Bible available to the public is an ambitious one. They offer the transcript of the text(with some kind of apparatus) together with translation in English (incomplete as far as I detected) and the plan to offer translations also in German, Russian and Greek.

The software used to present the images resemble google maps' with zoom-in feature which, unfortunately, is not working very well. Nevertheless, I have confidence that the programmers will fix the issues very soon.

Dilīpa

ākārasadṛśaprajñaḥ prajñayā sadṛśāgamaḥ /
āgamaiḥ sadṛśārambha[ḥ] ārambhasadṛśodayaḥ // Ragh_1.15 //

ākāreṇa mūrtyā sadṛśī prajñā yasya saḥ [ākārasadṛśaprajñaḥ]| prajñayā sadṛśāgamaḥ prajñānurūpaśāstrapariśramaḥ | āgamaiḥ sadṛśa ārambhaḥ karma yasya sa [sadṛśārambhaḥ] tathoktaḥ | ārabhyata ityārambhaḥ karma | tatsadṛśa udayaḥ phalasiddhiryasya sa [ārambhasadṛśodayaḥ] tathoktaḥ ||

His intellect was commensurate with his bodily form, his knowledge with his intelligence, his undertakings with his knowledge and his success with his undertakings.*

Now follows my reading of Mallinātha's commentary:

He, whose intellect is comparable with [his] stature, with [his] body [ākārasadṛśaprajñaḥ]. [His] knowledge was comparable with [his] intellect - exertion in sacred texts [was] comparable with [his] intellect. He whose deeds, undertakings are comparable with knowledge [sadṛśārambhaḥ] thus is said. "ārabhyata" undertaking, deed. He whose obtaining fruits, success is comparable with that, [ārambhasadṛśodayaḥ] thus is said.

* The translation of the verse was taken from 1922 edition of Moreshwar Ramacandra Kale

Granthinām punarbhava

The blog of Daniel Stender returned among us. The address where you can read it is the same: http://www.danielstender.com/granthinam/

Welcome back Dan!

Tools I can't live without

Here is a list with the tools I use in reading Sanskrit:

Gérard Huet dictionary of inflected forms

The title is self explaining. This dictionary allows me to search for inflected forms of substantives, verbs, absolutives etc.

Microsoft Keyboard Creator

This is a tool from Microsoft that allows me to define keyboard layouts that can be then installed on Windows.

Diacritic Conversion · diCrunch

I use this from time to time to convert between various transliteration schemes.

International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS)

In September this year an Indology Symposium will be held in Oxford. You can get all the info regarding eligibility, registration, paper submission, costs at the links attached.

A shocking episode from Mrinal Kaul's last post

Mrinal Kaul is reporting again on bureaucracy in some Indian institutions.

The Banaras Hindu University was even worst. After struggling with the chief librarian for almost more than three weeks, I was still being avoided saying - " We do not allow issuing copies of the manuscripts since we hold its copy right. Earlier also we had some instances that students took the manuscripts and produced them as their thesis." When I made my purpose clear that I am just working on a critical edition of a text and I need these manuscripts for that purpose and also providing him with a bibliography of the earlier printed editions of the same text, he replied "You see the text you are looking for is already in the market, so why don't you buy it from there? You see we are an autonomous organization established by an Act of Parliament of Government of India which has its own privileges and rights and we have decided not to give away manuscript copies". They say politeness pays, but surely not in this case. I had to meet the vice-chancellor and made him understand why I required the desired manuscripts placing all critical editions from Pondicherry on his table. He was convinced and talked to the librarian and then my problem was solved.

Granthinām is temporarily down

Due to an administrative issue the Granthinām blog of Daniel Stender is temporarily down. Please hang on, my feeling is that soon it will be up again.

Sanskrit for beginners

Manuals/grammars:

• [$$$] Michael Coulson - Teach Yourself Sanskrit Complete Course
• [ ] Arthur Anthony MacDonell - Sanskrit Grammar for Students
• [ ] Antoine Robert - A Sanskrit manual for high schools (1968)

Textbooks/readers:

• [ ] Charles Rockwell Lanman - A Sanskrit Reader: With Vocabulary and Notes (1912)
  
• [ ] The Sanskrit reader - Saṃskṛtapāṭhāvaliḥ

Internet resources:

• The Sanskrit Heritage Dictionary (Gérard Huet)
• [] Monier Williams dictionary - windows application

I also am looking for a list of easy Sanskrit texts, so if you have suggestions, please advise.

Musée Guimet, some deities

Here the label said: Divinte masculine, Hevajra?

Few shots from Musée Guimet

This picture in not very good. This is a huge three blade dagger.