Help with correct transliteration of these rāga names

[HariKrishna]

nīlāmbari or is it nīlāmbarī?

amṛtavarṣini or is it amṛtavarṣinī or amṛtavarṣiṇi or amṛtavarṣiṇī?

ābhōgi or ābhogi?



(Sanskrit does not have a long o sound but I think Telugu does?)

[Lakshman]

In the ITRANS format it is amrtavarSiNi and AbhOgi. Some people use the dhIrga ending for the former. It nIlAmbari as far as I know.

[HariKrishna]

so “amrtavarSiNi” in iTRANS should = amrtavarṣiṇi in IAST.

However I thought for sure it would be “amṛta..” and and not “amrta…” or am I wrong?

[HariKrishna]

I guess a big question I have about these rāga names is, are they from Sanskrit or Telugu or both? Sanskrit does not have a long e or long o sound but Telugu does. It looks to me like Sanskrit “e” is often being transliterated as “ē” when there are Telugu words also present and same for “o” - does that make sense or am I totally off here?

[HariKrishna]

This page https://rasikas.org/mw/index.php?title=Main_Page which I recently discovered has “nīlāmbarī” with a long “i” at the end - correct or misprint?

[Sachi_R]

In my understanding, all the rāga names are originally from Sanskrit.

Now, in Sanskrit, it is written as Gaurī, Nīlāmbarī etc.

In Kannada and Telugu etc., we do not write the long vowels in the end, So we write Sita, Gauri . Not Sītā, Gaurī.

Please note I am typing these words with diacritical marks as per IAST.

By the way, in most texts I see, I find typos when Sanskrit words are written either in Devanagari or using Roman characters. This is a buggy field. So better we make the effort to write the words correctly in Devanagari.
Even here there are mistakes as Hindi writing does not exactly follow Sanskrit rules:
https://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AD ... A%E0%A5%80

[HariKrishna]

Thank you, this is helpful to know. I was also beginning to suspect that there were transliteration errors everywhere I looked. If you agree there are mistakes even in that link (it has "ābhīrī" instead of "ābherī") then is there any standard source that can be trusted?

Also, what to make of transliterations like "dēvagāndhārī" or "ābhērī?" Sanskrit has no "ē" sound as per ITRANS notation. But I see some rāgams being transliterated with short "e" sound and others with long "e" sound - if these rāgams are based on Sanskrit then that should be incorrect, right? Or is it because Telugu has both "e" and "ē" sound that this distinction is being made?

I'm not sure, but I think "e" sound of Sanskrit corresponds to the "ē" sound of Telugu. Is this correct, or am I way off here?

[Sachi_R]

HariKrishna Garu, You're 100% correct in every point you have made.

The e in Sanskrit is ALWAYS long.

The Kannada, Telugu and other languages when transliterated in IAST would need the clarity of short and long e's.

I know, as a student of Sanskrit, that the errors galore everywhere in writing Sanskrit are being addressed slooooowly. No uniformity or demand for perfection.

I would venture that the Sanskrit books published nowadays are compiled and printed mostly in Hindi speaking regions. The number of errors when it comes to अनुस्वार and परसवर्ण are mind-boggling. In the south we have the problems of short and long vowels, and displacing k with g and such.

But people like you are asking the right questions!

[HariKrishna]

Thank you for the feedback. If it seems I'm obsessing over this, it's because I'm an ABCD and... being raised in an English-speaking environment, I am sensitive to the tendency to mispronounce names, which I don't want to do. Thus, I've taken it upon myself to fix my Music library so that all Indian classical songs are transliterated correctly and in a lossless fashion. Plus, I want to be able to pass on this library to my kids and improve their music literacy.

So, based on what you are saying, I should probably use "ē" by default in any rāgam names and kṛti names for Sanskrit songs. Whereas if it is a Telugu song, I should be more careful to distinguish between "ē" and "e."

Same, I assume for "o." The default Sanskrit "o" is, I assume, equivalent to the Telugu "ō" correct?

Also, since Sanskrit has no "w" sound, rāgams like "hamsadhwanī" are actually "haṁsadhvanī" with "v" instead of "w." Also the "m" in "hamsa" should, I think, be a "ṁ" if I remember correctly.

Also rāgams like "ādi pancama" should be transliterated as "ādi pañcama" because the nasal sound takes on the character of the following consonant in Sanskrit grammar. Ditto for "n" appearing before "k, kh, g, gh" which should be transliterated as "ṅ" such as "aruṇāṅgi"

Please let me know if I am in error here... it has been a while since my formal Sanskrit instruction.

[Sachi_R]

You are good.

Try and encode titles and lyrics in BOTH Telugu and English to avoid mistakes. I attach a link to a good chart for reference prepared by a Prof.