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Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:21 am
by JackV
Hi.

Not sure if anyone can help me with this but I need to find, to see, handwritten the Pali for the three marks of existence; Annica, Dukkha, Anatta. I have been looking online and in books but I Cannot find the words handwritten just shown in typeface like Times New Roman etc.

If anyone can write in Pali please let me know it would be a great help to I.

Thanks

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:37 am
by retrofuturist
Greetings Jack,

The reason you've not been able to find it is that there's no Pali script per se... Pali is just written in the local script, be it Sinhalese, Thai, Roman etc.

Metta,
Retro. :)

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 1:52 pm
by DNS
See also:

http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2369" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:28 am
by JackV
Thanks! I have found a site which translates (so it says) into Devanagari script. I just wondered if anyone can confirm that the translation it does is correct. Anyone read Devanagari?

http://www.codewallah.com/diCrunch/diCrunch.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I just typed in Anicca, Dukkha and Anatta from Unicode to Devanagari and presto!

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:16 pm
by DNS
अनिच्चा (anicca)

अनिच्च

Yes, it appears to work!

I'm not a Devangari reader, but the top one is from Wikipedia and the lower one is from that link and they look the same.

edit: I just enlarged them and it appears the Wikipedia version has some extra line at the end, so one of them may be wrong?

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:54 pm
by DNS
दुक्ख (dukkha) Wikipedia

दुक्ख (dukkha) http://www.codewallah.com/diCrunch/diCrunch.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For dukkha they look the same.

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 3:01 pm
by DNS
but for Dhamma they have a different first character:

धम्म Wikipedia

ढम्म http://www.codewallah.com/diCrunch/diCrunch.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 3:23 pm
by Sobeh
This was helpful to me as I hauled myself up from pure ignorance of the script to a basic framework for looking at a line of text and seeing the structure of it. Perhaps the different looks have more to do with the presence of 'punctuation' on the alphasyllabic unit, and not a different unit altogether?

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:23 am
by JackV
Mr Snyder, thank you very much.

I didn't want to just put my faith in a translator. I also saw the Wikipedia entry but was curious if that itself could be incorrect possibly generated from the same translator. I think though I can probably trust it. I mean who goes about making ostensibly rather complex translators that do not do what they purport to do? Also despite the insults that get leveled at Wikipedia I think its kick ass. The people have a power to help and support each other, the proof is in the pudding despite what we are told to think about ourselves and others.

Cheers!

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 2:15 am
by AnandaL
I don't know if this issue is still extant. I'm the developer of diCrunch conversion tool that was discussed. diCrunch does produce fully accurate conversions between most diacritic systems and Devanagari script. However, most of the transliterations you read online don't have the necessary diacritic marks to accurately reproduce the original in an Indic script.

The Devanagari versions you find in Wikipedia are accurate. The "anitya" of Sanskrit mutates to "aniccaa" in Pali, and the vertical bar you see at the end stands for a long A, and same applies for anatta. Written in Harvard-Kyoto transliteration, they are dukkha, aniccA, anattA, the proper IAST transliteration is dukkha, aniccā, anattā, and the Devanagari is दुक्ख, अनिच्चा, अनत्ता.

What happened in your case is you wrote Dhamma, and had "Harvard-Kyoto" selected. In Harvard-Kyoto, the diacritics are marked by capitalization, and as such "D" is not the same as "d", "A" does not equal "a", and so forth. This is why you need to have accurate transliterations (or otherwise know your grammar!) if you want to render Romanized words into Indic script. At least before you tattoo them on your arm.

If you wanted to be true to the roots, you'd probably write it in Brahmi script. This is the script you'd have seen in the edicts of Ashoka, if you've read the small print on your pilgrimages. Sinhalese is of course another very classic (and cool-looking!) script, the typeface of Tipitaka as the Theravadins of yore had it in Sri Lanka.

I'd actually love to add Brahmi and Sinhalese to diCrunch when I get a bit of spare hobby time. For one, I'd love to print out some suttas in the "original" and see if I can decipher them! That'd surely yield a mighty dose of nirvana.
:spy:

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 4:03 am
by DNS
AnandaL wrote:I don't know if this issue is still extant. I'm the developer of diCrunch conversion tool that was discussed.
:thumbsup: Cool.
If you wanted to be true to the roots, you'd probably write it in Brahmi script. This is the script you'd have seen in the edicts of Ashoka, if you've read the small print on your pilgrimages. Sinhalese is of course another very classic (and cool-looking!) script, the typeface of Tipitaka as the Theravadins of yore had it in Sri Lanka.
I agree, considering the history, it would be nice to see and know how to read the Brahmi script and the Sinhalese is a good second choice too; love those circular movements of the script.

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel! That is quite an informative first post.

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 4:20 am
by Virgo
Dear Jack, not to try to guess your intentions or to be critical, but is seems you may want these scripts for some artwork or possibly a tattoo? I may be wrong as well. But anyway, artwork and tattoos are also dukkha. The mind that looks at them is dukkha. The feeling they produce is dukkha, and so on and so forth.

I hope I have not jumped the gun, as they say.

All the best,

Kevin

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 4:25 am
by retrofuturist
Greetings Ananda,

Ah, I thought your name looked familiar.

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel, oh, and say hi to Sir Moonshine from me and the rasta Queen Coco.

:hello:

Metta,
Retro. :)

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 7:26 am
by mikenz66
AnandaL! :hello:

Long time no communicate!

Mike

Re: Can anyone be of assistance?

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 8:17 pm
by yuttadhammo
David N. Snyder wrote:but for Dhamma they have a different first character:

धम्म Wikipedia

ढम्म http://www.codewallah.com/diCrunch/diCrunch.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Just to be clear, the top about says "dhamma". The bottom says "damma"
AnandaL wrote:I don't know if this issue is still extant. I'm the developer of diCrunch conversion tool that was discussed. diCrunch does produce fully accurate conversions between most diacritic systems and Devanagari script. However, most of the transliterations you read online don't have the necessary diacritic marks to accurately reproduce the original in an Indic script.
diCrunch is great! Thanks so much for creating this useful tool. I wonder if you would mind if I incorporate some of it into the DPR?