Avagraha
Encyclopedia
Avagraha is a Devanāgarī
symbol used to indicate prodelision
of an . It is usually transliterated with an apostrophe
, as in the Sanskrit
philosophical expression ( without sandhi
) ‘I am Shiva
’. The avagraha is also used for prolonging vowel sounds in modern languages, for example Hindi
for ‘Mãããã!’ when calling to one’s mother. Sometimes it is also used to signify long or heavy syllables in metrical poetry
, for example can the syllables in the word ‘metre’ (in nominative) be expressed as , as two long syllables.
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
symbol used to indicate prodelision
Prodelision
Prodelision is a form of elision in which the latter word loses its first vowels.Example:"Namqu etsi nullum memorabile nomenfemine in poena st, habet haec victoria laudem,extinxisse nefas."...
of an . It is usually transliterated with an apostrophe
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
, as in the Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
philosophical expression ( without sandhi
Sandhi
Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
) ‘I am Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
’. The avagraha is also used for prolonging vowel sounds in modern languages, for example Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
for ‘Mãããã!’ when calling to one’s mother. Sometimes it is also used to signify long or heavy syllables in metrical poetry
Sanskrit prosody
Versification in Classical Sanskrit poetry is of three kinds.# Syllabic verse : meters depend on the number of syllables in a verse, with relative freedom in the distribution of light and heavy syllables...
, for example can the syllables in the word ‘metre’ (in nominative) be expressed as , as two long syllables.