Mysterious Sanskrit Letters

[Glayvin 0]

Hello, everyone on the forums!

I'm slowly teaching myself to read sanskrit by listening repeatedly to spoken mantras and by googling anything I don't understand.

 

I have two main questions:

1. What is the deal with the letter that sounds like "ksh" and is used to spell Lakshmi? I can't seem to find a definition for it and I'm wondering if it sounds like ş or ś?

 

2. The "ŗ" vowel when written confuses me. I have been using the Gayatri mantra (attached) in my spiritual disciplines and there are several instances where the sanskrit either uses a letter I've never seen to denote "ŗ" or uses nothing at all and I only know how to pronounce from the transliteration.

The words in questions are

"savitur" this word lacks any "ŗ" notation

"bhargo" also lacks any "ŗ" notation

"prachodayat" seems to have some notation on the "pa" letter, but I have no idea what it is.

 

Any help or indication of where I have fundametally misinterpreted sanskrit pronunciation would be much appreciated!!

[Jahnava Nitai Das 2]

In sanskrit the R without any vowel after it, but with another consonant following it, is written as a small hook above the bar that joins all the letters, similar to how the vowels are written.

 

For 'R' that comes after a consonant and before a vowel, like in "pra" it is added as a diagnal line within the letter 'pa'.

[xxvvii 0]

 

I have two main questions:

1. What is the deal with the letter that sounds like "ksh" and is used to spell Lakshmi? I can't seem to find a definition for it and I'm wondering if it sounds like ş or ś?

 

2. The "ŗ" vowel when written confuses me. I have been using the Gayatri mantra (attached) in my spiritual disciplines and there are several instances where the sanskrit either uses a letter I've never seen to denote "ŗ" or uses nothing at all and I only know how to pronounce from the transliteration.

The words in questions are

"savitur" this word lacks any "ŗ" notation

"bhargo" also lacks any "ŗ" notation

"prachodayat" seems to have some notation on the "pa" letter, but I have no idea what it is.

"ksh" sounds like eng. 'k' together with retroflex 's'. "savitur" may be the single genitive form of "savitR". I have given the sound files in my Skt 2 homepage: http://xxxvvi.esmartdesign.com/

[drkpp 0]

Here is the Gayatri Mantra properly written in Sanskrit(Devanagari) letters:

ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं भर्गोदेवस्य धीमहि धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् |

 

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