Can anyone be of assistance?

[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

[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.

[David N. Snyder]

See also:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2369

[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

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

[David N. Snyder]

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?

[David N. Snyder]

दुक्ख (dukkha) Wikipedia

दुक्ख (dukkha) http://www.codewallah.com/diCrunch/diCrunch.php

For dukkha they look the same.

[David N. Snyder]

but for Dhamma they have a different first character:

धम्म Wikipedia

ढम्म http://www.codewallah.com/diCrunch/diCrunch.php

[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?

[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!

[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.

[David N. Snyder]

I don't know if this issue is still extant. I'm the developer of diCrunch conversion tool that was discussed.

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.

[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

[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.



Metta,
Retro.

[mikenz66]

AnandaL!

Long time no communicate!

Mike

[yuttadhammo]

but for Dhamma they have a different first character:

धम्म Wikipedia

ढम्म http://www.codewallah.com/diCrunch/diCrunch.php

Just to be clear, the top about says "dhamma". The bottom says "damma"

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?

[AnandaL]

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone. It's been a while since I was active at the Lioncity forums — wonder whatever happened to them. Great to see that the same crowd has been gathering here from the Theravada forums there. I was off the grid across India and Nepal for a good while there, now back in Europe and sorting out the samsara soup.

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.

I should have some close-ups of the engravings on the pillars in Sarnath at least. The logic is similar enough to Devanagari and the rest of the Indic abugida scripts, despite its anciety. There are interesting charts showing how the scripts evolved, if memory serves they have one on the Sarnath museum wall in the lobby. (I may have a photo of that, too.)

The circular shapes of Sinhalese are characteristic to South-Indian scripts, despite its being a North-Indian language (unlike the rest of them, which are Dravidian). As I recall, historically the rounded shapes had to do with available writing technology — too many sharp strokes would break the parchment, so round characters were easier to deal with.

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?

Please, by all means. It's licensed under GPL, and I notice the same is true of DPR (which I will need to check out shortly), so all clear there.

In due course, as a part of my Python studies, I'd like to turn this into a desktop version as well, to make it more portable for people who may not have a web hosting account, or know how to run PHP/Apache on their local machines. It shouldn't be too hard to port over.

I will also be turning diCrunch into a plugin for an open-source CMS I've been working on for the last year and a half, so anyone interested in setting up a (community) site with integrated IAST/Indic script functionality can get the project going without software headaches. If someone has other applications in mind that would benefit people, feel free to shout out and let me know, or help yourselves and use as you wish.

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 don't know if tattoos are a touchy or controversial subject here. As far as I understand, there's a whole Thai Buddhist temple tattoo tradition out there — although it seems to be influenced by native belief systems and practices (like much of modern Thai Buddhism with amulets and the rest). (See Sak Yant for reference.)

Either way, I find it hard to understand how hacking ink into your skin would lead to more dukkha than scribbling ink on parchment in any fundamental sense, if the subject is fitting. Frankly, I believe it'd be quite beneficial for many to tattoo the triple seal on the back of their palm or something — might lead to a splinter-moment of mindfulness while hovering for that new iPhone.

Dukkha basically comes from tanha, not from tattoos — or artwork... Before you ask, I do have a good few tats on myself — sets of abstract symbols that carry fundamental meaning to me — until the aggregates eventually dissolve. And I don't think I'd be in dukkha if I woke up tomorrow and they were all gone — that'd be a grand omen, if anything!

And if I may be so bold as to say this, tattooing the triple gem on your body can be even more powerful an impression than verbally accepting ti-sarana. You can proclaim ti-sarana with your lips and then weasel out when the winds change, but hacking it into your skin with an understanding of its significance is tantamount to saying "I'll carry this with me for the rest of my life". Skillful means!

[yuttadhammo]

Please, by all means. It's licensed under GPL, and I notice the same is true of DPR (which I will need to check out shortly), so all clear there.

Actually, I'm not sure what license is the DPR... I'm afraid to approach that subject. Your thoughts on the subject would be welcome. It's a bit of a mish-mash of stuff, so I think its sort of a "Hope No One Notices" kind of license...

In due course, as a part of my Python studies, I'd like to turn this into a desktop version as well, to make it more portable for people who may not have a web hosting account, or know how to run PHP/Apache on their local machines. It shouldn't be too hard to port over.

That would be nice... make sure to include the Linux source

[AnandaL]

Actually, I'm not sure what license is the DPR... I'm afraid to approach that subject. Your thoughts on the subject would be welcome. It's a bit of a mish-mash of stuff, so I think its sort of a "Hope No One Notices" kind of license...

Downloaded, and quite happy to see how robust the word lookups are — javascript strips off declensions and conjugations to search base word forms, as well as fetches entries from XML with JavaScript (?), without my browser coughing up. Actually, I notice you use external lookups for at least some of the dictionaries — correct? (Didn't quite get to the bottom of those XML files yet.) The Thai script conversion is a cool add-on — and since it's also an abugida and closely related to the rest, I'd expect conversions between Devanagari / Thai (/ Brahmi / Sinhalese etc.) to work too.

I once did a tool for analyzing Bengali for grammar, where you'd type/paste in a sentence and it'd explain the conjugation and do lookups against a dictionary at the same time. The thought's been in the air to turn that, too, into a CMS-integrated tool, where you could for example post any Pali documents to a website, and then click on a sentence and "explain" -- would make an interesting study extension to websites.

While we're on the topic, do you have access to raw databases? (And can they be reused?) Would be ideal to have them all in a central SQL server, and both have an online service as well as an API for lookups to be integrated into tools. Not that I'm not swamped with work right now, but perhaps something to look into in the future! Would also work as a Python/SQLite desktop tool...

I think we're royally off topic here!

[JackV]

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

I thank you very much for this. The program you have developed is amazing.
Yes Grammer and the likes are very difficult to get right and confirm when you are begining to investigate and trying to undrestand the rules of such a complex matter as language by yourself.
I am no linguist, even of my own language, and I am not very technical so the entire process has been incredibly illuminating from the standpoint of language and its structures down t understanding - or at least attempting to - the different types of keyboard codes and computer language; Unicode Harvard Kyoto etc.

Once again thanks for this. It is for a tattoo, I think that Anicca is a great reminder to always have visable as we tend to slip without even realising from understanding. I also liked the idea of having something which is a reminder of the inconstant nature of all phenomenon which is itself fully subject to it , my skin will age, the tattoo will fade etc.

[JackV]

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

You say you hope you have not jumped the gun and are not being critical but I think you are aware that you are, to an extent.
I do also have some awareness of the central tenets of Buddhist thought and am aware of this (we are communicating via a online buddhist forum after all).
I am alive and a living sentient being and I act in accordance with myself much the same as all other actions whether in regards to tattoos or walking or talking. Making this comment is strange, all is Dukkha, pretty much.
I think that Anicca is a great reminder to always have visable. A reminder that itself is subject to the very forces of which it makes mention of. Dont get too attached.
I can decide to do what I wish. Internally my reasons, personally, may be strengthning my resolve to follow the path, how does anyone know? Best to let people to do as they wish and assist them when in need rather than try and force, however insidiously and veiled they are, your own ego driven judgements.

Thank you and I wish you all the best.

Jake