Sanskrit Transliteration

Not surprisingly, objections have been made on Facebook to the Sanskrit transliteration in the foregoing post, Bhagavad-Gita 1.1. My purpose, however, was simply to give the readers a rough idea of the pronunciation of what, in a proper transliteration with diacritical marks, would be written as ṛ, ś, ṣ and c (other things that would be indicated by such marks I chose to leave out as less important) – as when I write rishi, shakti and chakra in English, or Swedish, texts. In other words, I did not intend to give a regular transliteration at all. For my limited purpose, I think the diacritical marks – and simply c – would have created unnecessary confusion for those who are still not familiar with them; it would, indeed, have made it impossible for them to have any idea of the right pronunciation.

International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration