1.A.7 The Sixteen sakti: am ah To these fourteen vowels are added the anusvara and visarga to form what are called the sixteen matrka or sakti (powers or energies). The anusvara (m) is an 'after sound', a nasal sound following a vowel. It is sounded through the nose only, and should be independent of mouth position. Later on we shall consider how it may be substituted by a nasal consonant depending on the following letter. The visarga (h), or visarjanlya, is an unvoiced breath following a vowel, and is breathed through the mouth position of that vowel. Some traditions append an echo of the vowel after the breath, so that ah may be sounded as ah a , etc. Strictly speaking, the anusvara and visarga are not part of the alphabet inasmuch as they arise only through the rules of sandhi (euphonic combination). Since these both arise only after a vowel we shall precede them with a (though they can occur with other vowels too) when sounding the sixteen sakti, which form the start of the alphabetical order, i.e.: aailuurrlleaioau am ah In the transliteration scheme shown above, the lines and dots, called 'diacritical marks', are used because the Sanskrit alphabet has more letters than the English alphabet. Diacritics are combined with Roman letters to represent new sounds, for example the macron (horizontal bar above the letter) is used to indicate the long (dlrgha) version of the vowel. 1.A.8 Practising the Alphabet One way of memorizing the script is by writing it: look at the form of the letter, sound it, and then write it. In this exercise it is important to associate the sound with the form. When you write the letter, write the whole letter without referring back to the original. If, halfway through, you forget how to continue the letter, then start again: and do not continue with that half-completed letter. Remember that the exercise is not simply to copy the original form, but to associate a sound with a whole form, so do not practise half letters. When the shape has become familiar then time can be spent refining the proportions of the letter. Another method of practising the alphabet is to use flash cards with the devanagarT letter on one side and the transliterated Roman letter on the other (in case you forget you can turn over). These cards can also be used in the other direction: from the transliterated Roman letter, see if you can visualize the devanagarT form. In fact, there needs to be a three way association, namely between both the written forms and the sound, so that any one of these associates with the other two.
