The following is for devotees who use Vedabase, and will only be an abstraction for many of my readers.

Today I got two different emails with quotes from the Vedabase. The following isn’t one of them just selected for sake of example:

“Therefore to become wise after many, many births of struggling or cultivating knowledge, when one comes to perfection of knowledge he surrenders to Kåñëa.”

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Conversation with Bajaj and Bhusan — September 11, 1972, Arlington, Texas, At Their Home

Note how Krsna is written as Kåñëa. This happens when things are copied and pasted out of the Vedabase.

The Vedabase is a database done by the Bhaktivedanta Archives which has all of Srila Prabhupada’s books, all of his transcribed lectures and conversations and books about him, lots of ISKCON related stuff et cetera. It turns any schmo like me into a researcher with access to lots of material right on my personal computer.

Sanskrit uses a nonWestern set of characters. When it is transliterated into English alphabet there are a lot of diacritical markings used in order to cope with the limitations of said alphabet.

In order for these diacritics to display properly a Sanskrit font has to be used, otherwise Krsna displays as Kåñëa and most other transliterated Sanskrit words are also messed up.

So I am on a campaign to eliminate Kåñëa from devotee writing.  Hence the following, which should make sense if you use Vedabase:

When copying from Vedabase there is a Copy With Reference without Diacritics feature.

On the toolbar that has the Search box, go to the right past the Arrows and the Show History icons and then there is the Copy with Reference icon, then the Copy with Reference without Diacritics icon which looks like two pages one on top of the other. When you have selected some text, one of the sheets turns yellow. Click on that instead of using other ways to Copy.

Then when the text is pasted in Krsna stays Krsna.

At least that is the way it works in my version.

If you use generic Copy by right clicking, diacritics are included and then it Pastes weird looking in places like email or word processing software where a Sanskrit font isn’t installed. Note the differences hereafter first with diacritics, then without:

You do not understand Kåñëa, and you want to understand Kåñëa’s dealings with Rädhäräëé.

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Conversation with Indian Guests — April 12, 1975, Hyderabad

You do not understand Krsna, and you want to understand Krsna’s dealings with Radharani.

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Conversation with Indian Guests — April 12, 1975, Hyderabad

Anyway I sent this out in reply to the emails I received, which came from a email group, which means everyone in the group got it.

Dulal Candra sent this in reply:

“Or better yet, use the new Vedabase.com online which is in unicode (diacritics will properly display in any font). It also has a wonderful search feature. Please note that diacritics will be automatically be stripped on pamho.net

“http://vedabase.com/en/

“Thank you Bhaktivedanta Archives for this wonderful tool.”

Next day (Jan. 25th) addendum:

I got this feedback:

> Thanks for the Vedabase tips, although my copy doesn’t have such features.

My reply:

If you go to the View tab in the menu bar go down and click on Toolbars and there will be a popup window.  Make sure Copy Options is selected.

Another update:

Ekanath sent an image of another way to get the icons on the Toolbar. Click on the thumbnail to see. You get to Customize under the Tools tab.