3. Of the devanāgarī itself there are minor varieties, depending on differences of locality or of period, as also of individual hand (see examples in Weber’s catalogue of the Berlin Sanskrit MSS., in Rājendralāla Mitra’s notices of MSS. in Indian libraries, in the published fac-similes of inscriptions, and so on); and these are in some measure reflected in the type prepared for printing, both in India and in Europe. But a student who makes himself familiar with the one style of printed characters will have little difficulty with the others, and will soon learn, by practice, to read the manuscripts. A few specimens of types other than those used in this work are given in Appendix A.
a. On account of the difficulty of combining them with the smaller sizes of our Roman and Italic type, the devanāgarī characters are used below only in connection with the first or largest size. And, in accordance with the laudable usage of recent grammars, they are, wherever given, also transliterated, in Clarendon letters; while the latter alone are used in the other sizes.
4. The student may be advised to try to familiarize himself from the start with the devanāgarī mode of writing. At the same time, it is not indispensable that he should do so until, having learned the principal paradigms, he comes to begin reading and analysing and parsing; and many will find the latter the more practical, and in the end equally or more effective, way.
5. The characters of the devanāgarī alphabet, and the European letters which will be used in transliterating them, are as follows:
| short | long | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowels: | simple | 1 अ a | 2 आ ā | |
| palatal | 3 इ i | 4 ई ī | ||
| labial | 5 उ u | 6 ऊ ū | ||
| lingual | 7 ऋ ṛ | 8 ॠ ṝ | ||
| dental | 9 ऌ ḷ | [10 ॡ ḹ] | ||
| diphthongs | palatal | 11 ए e | 12 ऐ āi | |
| labial | 13 ओ o | 14 औ āu | ||
| Visarga | 15 ः ḥ |
|---|---|
| Anusvāra | 16 ं, ँ ṅ or ṁ (see 73c). |
| surd | surd asp. | sonant | son. asp. | nasal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutes | guttural | 17 क k | 18 ख kh | 19 ग g | 20 घ gh | 21 ङ n̄ |
| palatal | 22 च c | 23 छ ch | 24 ज j | 25 झ jh | 26 ञ ñ | |
| lingual | 27 ट ṭ | 28 ठ ṭh | 29 ड ḍ | 30 ढ ḍh | 31 ण ṇ | |
| dental | 32 त t | 33 थ th | 34 द d | 35 ध dh | 36 न n | |
| labial | 37 प p | 38 फ ph | 39 ब b | 40 भ bh | 41 म m | |
