[Advaita-l] 'khsha' kAra in yajurveda saMhita maNtra-s

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> 
> Thank you Sri Anand ji, for a very informative post. Considering your
> final part, is it then improper to write मीनाक्षी while the correct form,
> going by the pronunciation, will have to be मीनाख्षी ? Do we see such forms
> in popular literature, leaving alone the veda-print forms? साक्षी will be
> साख्षी and पक्षः will be पख्षः ?
> 


I don't think that is necessary at all. The written script can still remain मीनाक्षी,
with the recognition that in pronunciation, it will be closer to मीनाख्षी. It is only
in more recent print publications of the veda that one sees an increased incidence
of explicitly writing ख्ष (khsha), in order to emphasize the correct pronunciation.
Most older printed books satisfy themselves with क्ष and I doubt if any written
manuscripts do otherwise.
 
Personally, I agree with Anand's observation that because of the prANa involved
in pronouncing sha-kAra, there is really no other way to say k-sha without making
it sound like kh-sha. If one enunciated correctly and carefully, it is easy to see that
this is a natural outcome of the human sound production apparatus. Therefore,
the best way to pronounce क्ष is kh-sha and if everybody spoke correctly, there
would be no need to use another consonant ligature to depict it. It is because
many do not pronounce correctly that newer print publications increasingly seem
to opt for explicitly writing ख्ष. 
 
> > What is important to note is that "sha" and "Sha" sounds are different,
> > since the originating places of their sounds are different. "sha" and "Sha"

Just to clarify, many people, including me, use a transliteration scheme "S, sh, s"
instead of "sh, Sh, s". The Harvard-Kyoto scheme uses "z, S, s", so there is no
one universal way to depict these sibilant sounds when writing in Roman script.
 
Best regards,
Vidyasankar