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Modular Infotech’s Unicode Devanāgarī fonts

High-quality Devanāgarī fonts suitable for professional typesetting are still hard to come by. One foundry producing fonts to something like the required standard is Pune-based Modular Infotech. They offer true bold faces and true italics. Refer to their specimen (published 2004, but apparently still current):

Modular Infotech Typefaces Catalog (2004:2)
Modular Infotech Typefaces Catalog (2004:2)

Since I haven’t used any of Modular Infotech’s fonts at the time of writing – they don’t come cheap – this is not yet a recommendation. Meanwhile, it’s possible to do some limited testing at fonts.com by clicking ‘TRY IT’ and typing a Unicode Devanāgarī string.

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The Brill font (2011)

The Brill is a Unicode font containing most of the characters used to typeset Sanskrit in roman script. It’s based on Baskerville, which has been used widely in typesetting Brill’s books. From the official pamphlet:

The Brill.
The Brill.

It’s plain to see that it blows fonts like Gentium out of the water, though that certainly isn’t saying much. I don’t love The Brill; some of its features evoke Bulmer’s inelegant take on Baskerville, and it lacks breathing space (which was a design requirement, “allowing Brill to reduce its environmental footprint” – like that’s going to happen). Which is just as as well, because The Brill can only be used for non-commercial purposes – i.e., nowhere in a published PDF or in the browsed or printed page without prior written permission. If you agree, download it here.

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Rashtriya Skt Sansthan, Saṃskṛtanāṭyaviṃśatikā (2010)

Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. Saṃskṛtanāṭyaviṃśatikā: Twenty best Sanskrit plays in performance. New Delhi: Rāṣṭriyasaṃskṛtasaṃsthānam, 2011(?). 20 videodiscs.

Contents: (1) Jāgarūko bhava (2) Sabhikadyūtakaram (3) Bhagavadajjukīyam (4) Karṇāsvatthāmīyam (5) Cārudattam (6) Campakarāmaḥ (7) Nāgānandam (8) Madhyamavyāyogaḥ (9) Mattavilāsaprahasanam (10) Svapnavāsavadattam (11) Hāsyacūḍāmaṇiprahasanam (12) Pratijñāśvatyāmīyam (13) Abhiṣekanāṭakam (14) Mālavikāgnimitram (15) Tripuradāhaḥ (16) Pañcakalyāṇī (17) Āścaryacūḍāmaṇiḥ (18) Sītācchāyam (19) Ekapātrābhinayaḥ (20) Kauravauravam [sic].

'...सेर्ष्यं मारवधूभिरित्यभिहितो बोधौ जिनः पातु व' (नागानन्दम् १.१)
‘…सेर्ष्यं मारवधूभिरित्यभिहितो बोधौ जिनः पातु वः’ (नागानन्दम् १.१)
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Park, Korean-Chinese-Sanskrit-English dictionary (2012)

Park_2012_cover-med박 종매 (Pak Chong-mae). 현대 한·영 불교용어사전 (Hyeon-dae Han-yeong Bul-gyo yong-eo sa-jeon). 푸른 향기. 2012-05-19. 28,000원 [official announcement]

Jongmae Kenneth Park. Modern Korean-Chinese-Sanskrit-English Buddhist dictionary. Seoul: Prunbook Publishing, 2012. 642 pp. ISBN 9788992073929.

The Sanskrit terms are typeset without diacritics, unfortunately. A scholarly Buddhist dictionary of Korean and Sanskrit is yet to be produced.

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Sonam Tsemo (Xu tr.), Intro to Buddhist Tantra (2012)

Xu_2012_Xubuzongjianlilun薩迦二祖索南孜莫（作者）, 許明銀（譯者） 《印度西藏密教概論：認識最初之體系性密教概說》 大千出版社 2012年12月22日

Sa skya Bsod rnams rtse mo [b.1142], Xu Ming Yin [b. 1952] (tr.). Yindu Xizang mi jiao gai lun: ren shi zui chu zhi ti xi xing mi jiao gai shuo [*Introduction to Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism: Understanding the first systematic primer on tantra(?)]. Taipei: Darchen, 2012. ISBN: 9789574472673 [books.com.tw]

A partial Chinese translation of the earliest rGyud sde spyi’i rnam par gzhag pa. See Xu’s unofficial introduction.

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KL Dhammajoti, Reading Buddhist Sanskrit Texts (2012)

Kuala Lumpur Dhammajoti. Reading Buddhist Sanskrit Texts. An Elementary Grammatical Guide. Hong Kong: Buddha-dharma Centre of Hong Kong, 2012. ix + 361 pp. ISBN 978-988-16820-1-7 [available from Swindon Books]

A book that finds and almost fills its niche. Some weirdness is apparent, like the fact that sentences in romanized transcription do not appropriately add white space after finals. There are numerous typos and mistakes in sandhi, and there are no keys to the exercises — always a severe limitation. However, a patient and competent reviewer could easily detect, report and fix most of these problems. Any effort to knock down the high walls erected around the study of Sanskrit in ‘the West’ is, of course, worth encouraging.

From the Preface

“There are many excellent Sanskrit primers […] However, they all share the common feature of being based on non-Buddhist sources […]
many Buddhist students […] need to spend a large amount of time getting acquainted with those texts which are neither their concern proper nor source nor inspiration […]. It is out of this consideration that […] I had been thinking of producing an elementary manual totally based on the Buddhist texts” (p. v).

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Tachikawa, Essays in Buddhist Theology (2012)

Tachikawa, Musashi. Essays in Buddhist Theology. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, November 2012. ISBN-13: 978-8120835405. INR 500. [official]

A translation of Budda no tetsugaku (1998) [corrected].

Cover note
“Buddhism does not recognize a concept of the existence of God (theos) such as found in Christianity, but here theos is not used to refer only to an absolute deity like the Christian god. By “theology,” the author means the systematic delineation of the confrontation with the condition of the times while carrying on the engagement between the divine and oneself.
Continue reading “Tachikawa, Essays in Buddhist Theology (2012)”

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Helliwell, Layard & Sachs, World Happiness Report (2012)

“The happiest countries in the world are all in Northern Europe…”

John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs (eds). World Happiness Report. The Earth Institute, Columbia University, April 2 2012. [official / PDF]

So much to comment on, so little time. For starters: if you are a Theravādin, social capital and personal wellbeing have nothing to do with each other. Suffice it to say that much of the reaction has been unhappy. Related studies (e.g., on how ‘happiness’ has been quantified) may be found at the authors’ homepages.

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Suzuki, ‘Why did Korea become Christian?’ (2012)

鈴木 崇巨 （著）『韓国はなぜキリスト教国になったか』 春秋社　２０１２

Suzuki, Takahiro. Kankoku wa naze kirisutokyōkoku ni nattaka (*Why did Korea become a Christian country?). Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2012. 217 pp. ISBN: 9784393222065. [official]

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