[Advaita-l] Generalizing the rule : 'n' sound changing to 'N'

[Shrinivas Gadkari]

Namaste Shri Praveen, 

Thanks for confirming that there is no such standard rule. 

May be, to make sense of some mantras we may have to invoke 
such non-standard rules which seem phonetically reasonable. 
For example, we know that 'indha' and 'indra' can be 
interchanged in mantras (Br. Ar. Up. 4.2.2 ). 

This is in some ways continuation of an old thread - making 
sense of mantras by splitting them into smaller sounds - sometimes 
individual sounds. May be, some people who have participated 
in those discussions will say - oh no! not again. :) 

Regards, 
Shrinivas


On Tuesday, February 28, 2017 12:12 PM, Praveen R. Bhat <bhatpraveen at gmail.com> wrote:



Namaste Shrinivas ji,


On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 11:38 AM, Shrinivas Gadkari via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

We know that under certain conditions ‘n” sound in Sanskrit changes to ‘N’.
>
>
>http://sanskrit.samskrutam. com/en.grammar-tutorial- miscellaneous-Natva.ashx
>
​Yes, there are specific Panini rules for this, main ones being रषाभ्यां नो णः समानपदे and अट्कुप्वाङ्नुम्व्यवायेऽपि। There are few exceptions negating these rules or extending it across समानपदs that follow these.​

I wonder if we can generalize this to the entire group of sounds
>‘t, th, d, dh, n’ change respectively to --> ‘T, Th, D, Dh, N’ under
>certain conditions.
>
​No, this cannot be imagined; there are no Panini rules for this. टवर्ग is a class of consonants separate and not dependent on तवर्ग। Hypothetically, if this has to be imagined, then the other way rule will also be meaningless which is धात्वादेः णो नः। The णकार at the beginning of a धातु takes the नकार as a substitute. For example, the धातु नी that we see being used to form words such as नयति or नायकः is णीञ् in the धातुपाठ।

 
May be ‘T, Th, D, Dh, N’ do not have a standalone existence of their
>own, but are derived, supporting consonants. Hence we have so few
>words starting with these consonants.
>

Even in the case of नकार becoming णकार, the latter has to have a standalone existence for it to become an आदेश / replacement. So too, the टवर्ग।

Moreover, the words do not have to start from a particular letter for that letter to have existence. It can occur anywhere in the word.

प्रणोतोऽस्मि मुनित्रयम्,--Praveen R. Bhat

/* येनेदं सर्वं विजानाति, तं केन विजानीयात्। Through what should one know That owing to which all this is known! [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */​