![[ms.jpg]](bilder/ms.jpg)
e-mail: daniel@danielstender.com
For general information about Unicode take a look at Alan Wood's page.
Table of Unicode addresses for transliteration of Sanskrit resp. Devanāgarī following the standard of IAST:
| sign | decimal | hex | chart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ā | 256 | 0100 | Latin extended-A |
| ā | 257 | 0101 | " |
| Ī | 298 | 012A | " |
| ī | 299 | 012B | " |
| ū | 363 | 016B | " |
| Ṛ | 7770 | 1E5A | Latin extended additional |
| ṛ | 7771 | 1E5B | " |
| ṝ | 7773 | 1E5D | " |
| ḷ | 7735 | 1E37 | " |
| ṅ | 7749 | 1E45 | " |
| ñ | 241 | 00F1 | Latin-1 supplement |
| ṭ | 7789 | 1E6D | Latin extended additional |
| ḍ | 7693 | 1E0D | " |
| ṇ | 7751 | 1E47 | Latin extended additional |
| Ś | 346 | 015A | Latin extended-A |
| ś | 347 | 015B | " |
| ṣ | 7779 | 1E63 | Latin extended additional |
| ṃ | 7747 | 1E43 | " |
| ḥ | 7717 | 1E25 | " |
In utf-8 encoded HTML Unicode-entities can be produced numeric (&#x; [x=decimal]), when you don't know how to type them. At Wikipedia for instance:
![[wikipedia.png]](bilder/wikipedia.png)
Another simple way to use Unicode is to cut-and-paste.
Vedic signs, accent marks, misc.:
| sign | decimal | hex | chart |
|---|---|---|---|
| ṁ | 7745 | 1E41 | Latin extended additional |
| ḻ | 7739 | 1E3B | " |
| √ | 8730 | 221A | Mathematical operators |
| á | 225 | 00E1 | Latin-1 supplement |
| à | 224 | 00E0 | " |
| í | 237 | 00ED | " |
| ì | 236 | 00EC | " |
| ú | 250 | 00FA | " |
| é | 233 | 00E9 | " |
| ó | 243 | 00F3 | " |
Accents combined with diacritic marks like r-underdot-macron-/r-underdot-acute/grave and a/i/u-macron-acute are not intended as entities. But there is a combined acute ( ́ 769 0301) and a grave ( ̀ 768 0300) in the chart combining diacritical marks. The address of a combined mark must be applied: ṛ́ = ṛ́ etc. However older fonts have problems with this.
Among the combining diacritical marks there is a inferior breve ( ̮ 814 032E), a long ( ̱ 817 0331) and an anceps ( ͓ 851 0353). With these it's easy to display the metrics of a text. For example Nalopākhyāna 1 (Anuṣṭubh):
ā̱sī̱drā̱jā̱ na̮lo̱ nā̱ma̮ vī̱ra̮se̱na̮su̮to̱ ba̮lī̱
u̮pa̮pa̱nno̱ gu̮ṇa̱iri̱ṣṭa͓i rū̱pa̮vā̱na̱śva̮ko̱vi̮da̱ḥ
Unicode's Devanāgarī is awful to handle because इ (2311 0907) and ि (2367 093F) for example are different entities. At least ligatures are generated automatically, however older fonts apply the Virāma. The Indian Language Converter by Vijay Lakshminarayanan provides usual Harvard-Kyoto input and saves from typing something like this:
आसीद्राजा नलो नाम वीरसेनसुतो बली
उपपन्नो गुनैरिष्टै रूपवानश्वकोविदः
I found out that Google finds diacritics also in relation to their base letter and vice versa. Example:
![[googlediacrit.png]](bilder/googlediacrit.png)
If you want general info about LaTeX check out the project page, the article at Wikipedia and read the Not so short introduction. There is the LORIA Navigator and a ressource page @ Cambridge University, too. There are usergroups like DANTE and TUG. D. Taborelli made a nice page about The beauty of LaTeX, here is a TeX showcase. A. Roberts wrote about that LaTeX isn't for everyone but it could be for you. Einen guten Einführungskurs gibt es in Linux User 2 (2006), 4 (2006) und 6 (2006).
A very fast approach to get LaTeX running on your PC is the TeX Live distribution. Here is a page towards obtaining LaTeX.
Packets not included in your distribution can be found at the Comprehensive Tex Archive Network (CTAN), browse their catalogue here.
When you've mastered the novice level (getting LaTex running, creating your first document, knowledge of basic formatting commands and indispensable or basic packets) following ressources would be helpful solving everyday tasks like manipulating the standard 2ε layout features or towards suitable packets and classes and their usage: DANTE de-tex-faq, TeXnik, L2tabu, there are newsletters like TUGboat and PracTeX.
There are newsgroups like comp.text.tex and de.comp.text.tex to find advice.
Very useful literature is:But they can't be combined in every way, so that it's not possible to write all Vedic accents. A solution is the Diatop macro from the outdated packet Ipa by D. Roegel und Andrej Brodnik. The macro and its usage goes like this, just copy'n'paste it:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\def\diatop[#1|#2]{{\setbox1=\hbox{{#1{}}}\setbox2=\hbox{{#2{}}}%
\dimen0=\ifdim\wd1>\wd2\wd1\else\wd2\fi%
\dimen1=\ht2\advance\dimen1by-1ex%
\setbox1=\hbox to1\dimen0{\hss#1\hss}%
\rlap{\raise1\dimen1\box1}%
\hbox to1\dimen0{\hss#2\hss}}}%
\begin{document}
\hspace{0em}\diatop[\'|\=a] pakth\diatop[\'|\=a]so bhal\=an\'aso bhananat\diatop[\'|\=a]lin\=aso vi\d{s}\=a\d{n}\'{\i}na\d{h}
\'siv\diatop[\'|\=a]sa\d{h} \\ \diatop[\'|\=a] y\'o 'nayatsadham\diatop[\'|\=a] \diatop[\'|\=a]ryasya gavy\diatop[\'|\=a]
t\diatop[\'|\d{r}]tsubhyo ajaganyudh\diatop[\'|\=a] n\diatop[\'|\d{\=r}]n
\end{document}
It generates:
![[diatop.png]](bilder/diatop.png)
The grave goes same way. There is a problem with a \diatop[] at the beginning of a pararaph, then add a \hspace{0em} before it.
Another solution for Vedic accents within LaTeX 2ε is the packet Tipa made by Rei Fukui for typesetting the IPA, and which is unique for this purpose. Take a look at this example document including the combined diacritics we want to produce:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{tipa}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\begin{document}
The term \textit{\'S\=udra} (spelled: [\textipa{\textctc u:d\:r\textturna}]) occurs only
once in the \d{R}gvedasa\d{m}hit\=a:
\textipa{br\=ahma\d{n}\`o 'sya m\'ukham \=as\={\i}db\=ah\'=u r\=ajany\`a\d{h} k\d{r}t\'a\d{h} \\
\=ur\'=u t\'ad asya y\'ad vai\'sya\d{h} padbhy\'=am \'s\=udr\'o aj\=ayata} (10,90,12)
\end{document}
It generates:
![[tipa.png]](bilder/tipa.png)
I agree that a code based on the build-in diacritics including extended solutions is very awful to handle. If result-orientation is not your credo you can use the transliteration font included in the Sanskrit-packet (see below), or check out this:
Using the packet Unicode made by Dominique Unruh it's easy to deal with diacritics, if you know how to type the relevant entities (see above). This depends on your system and your environment, editor etc. Check out this screenshot of my editor to get the idea:
![[vimunicode.png]](bilder/vimunicode.png)
It's unnecessary to show the output. I agree that this a very nice solution, but I've got problems with the combined diacriticals (see above). Typing Devanāgarī this way is a little bit more complicated, because it needs an own input encoding. The packet doesn't provide support for all Unicode-entities. For full support for Unicode in LaTeX XeTeX (mainly on Mac) is certainly the most perfected solution so far.
Charles Wikner's packet Sanskrit is made for typesetting Devanāgarī next to transliterated roman with diacritics using the same encoding scheme. The packet is using a preprocessor (that has to be used before the first LaTeX run, edit your text in another file like .skt). There are different fonts weights and slopes, Vedic accents can be used even in Devanāgarī, six different steps of horizontal density are possible beside several character options. When you type something like this:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{skt}
\begin{document}
{\skt [10+] atra kecidaahu.h | .rgvedasya praathamyena sarvatraamnaatatvaadabhyarhita.m puurvamiti
nyaayenaabhyarhi\-tatvaattadyvaakhyaanamaadau yukta.m | praathamya.m ca puru.sasuukte vispa.s.ta.m |
tasmaadyaj~naatsarvahuta .rca.h saamaani jaj~nire | cha.mdaa.msi jaj~nire tasmaadyajustasmaadajaayata |
.rgve@ 10,90,9 | iti | tasmaat sahasra"siir.saa puru.sa ityuktaatparame"svaraadyaj~naadyajaniiyaat
puujaniiyaatsarvahuta.h sarvairhuuyamaanaat}
\end{document}
You get as a result:
![[skt.png]](bilder/skt.png)
As always there are little problems with hyphenation (see above) and the preprocessor sometimes produces inaccuracies you have to revise manually. Decide for yourself if the typeface is pretty. See the manual for further information, features, installing etc.
Another solution for Devanāgarī ist the packet Devanagari based on a preprocessor originally programmed by Frans Velthuis. The packet is well maintained and uses nearly the same input scheme, there are different typefaces included, but no transliteration. The input above produces the following result:
![[devnag.png]](bilder/devnag.png)
I think Devanagari should be the choice because you will find out the preprocessor is much more comfortable and reliable and I like the typefaces. For any further information about Hindi features etc. consult the manual.
Oliver Corff's Ctib4tex is a packet which do not use a preprocessor, but there are no Type1 fonts included, which are better for ps/pdf-output. Sirlin's dBu-can font is nice uncombined with other fonts. When you type some Wylie stuff like this:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ctib}
\begin{document}
{\tib lung pa zhig na rgul po'i bu zhig yod cin.
rgyal po de'i 'khor na phyug bo chen po zhig dang.
spyang po'i bu zhig yod par gda'.
rgyul po'i sras dang. phyug po'i bu. sprang chung de gsum pos.}
\end{document}
You'll get:
![[ctibtex.png]](bilder/ctibtex.png)
I think this is really easy. Check out the manual.
Another solution for typesetting dBu-can is Yoichi Fukuda's Tibtex. The packet makes use of a Perl-based preprocessor that needs a working Perl environment. The included, former commercial Type1 font is very nice even in combination with other fonts, so that Tibtex is my choice. Check out the example:
![[tibtex.png]](bilder/tibtex.png)