A Survey of Hinduism: Third Edition

Note on Transliteration and Pronunciation

xv ii Note on Transliteration and Pronunciation The internationally adopted system of transliteration of Sanskrit into English has been followed throughout. Sanskrit vowels have by and large the same value as their Italian counterparts. A macron above a vowel sign indicates a doubling of the length: ā = aa. Consonants broadly correspond—with some exceptions—to their English equivalents. Among the more notable differences are the numerous aspirates: th is not pronounced like the English th in theater but is a double consonant like the t-h in hot-house; j and c and their aspirates are pronounced like dsh. There are different t and d sounds (indicated by dots underneath the letters) for which there are no exact equivalents in English; ś and ṣ are pronounced like sh. While English does not have equivalents for some of the consonants indicated by diacritics (a dot above or below the letter) diacritics have been retained for the sake of correct rendering of the words (in Sanskrit the word meaning will change if d is exchanged for ḍ, t for ṭ, n for ṅ). Since this work is not primarily intended for the specialist in the field, Sanskrit words have been rendered in their uninflected stem forms rather than with their case endings (e.g., hetu for hetuḥ; mandapa for mandapam, etc.) Words, like karma, yoga, etc., which have become part of the English vocabulary have been left in the customary form of writing. I have also followed the fairly common practice of adding an English plural ending (-s) to Sanskrit words, neither separating the -s through a hyphen, as is done in some scholarly journals, nor using the grammatically correct Sanskrit plural formations: thus I have rendered, for example, the plural for Purāṇa as Purāṇas, and not Purāṇa-s or Purāṇāni. Indian names of authors have usually been left as they were found in the documents quoted; no attempt has been made either to transcribe them or to provide them with diacritics. Tamil names and words have not been consistently transliterated according to the most recent conventions; for the sake of easier identification, the Sanskritized form of some names has been retained (e.g., Sundaramūrti instead of Cuntaramurti, and so forth). xv iii A SURV EY OF HINDUISM In the bibliography Indian names have usually been dealt with as if they were European names. While this is technically not always correct—Śastrī, Iyengar, and others are really titles and not proper names—it makes it easier to identify authors. Transliterations from Hindī have been treated in the same way as those from Sanskrit, since it uses the same script. Although in spoken Hindī the short -a of the last syllable of a word is usually not articulated (a Hindī speaker will say Rām instead of Rāma, Śiv instead of Śiva) the syllable letters are the same in Devanāgarī as in Sanskrit and thus have been fully transliterated. Although there is no upper/lower case distinction in Indian alphabets, proper names of persons, places, rivers, mountains, titles of books, and so forth, have been capitalized according to English-language conventions. ...