Vocalic L and the Chart as an Argument

A varnamala chart is usually presented as a teaching aid, but it is better understood as an argument set out in rows and columns. The vowels come first because they need nothing else to be spoken. They are ordered from the position of least effort outwards. Length is treated as a dimension, so each vowel appears twice. The liquids that can carry a syllable are admitted as vowels and given the same treatment. Then the consonants follow in five classes of five, ordered from the back of the mouth to the lips, each class closed by its own nasal, with the semivowels, sibilants and the aspirate after them.

Every position in that grid asserts something about how a sound is made and how it relates to its neighbours. Vocalic l is one of the cells that the language barely fills, and it is retained because removing it would break the argument rather than because anyone needs to write it. Ranjana inherits the grid intact, along with the recitation that teaches it, and draws each cell in its own ornamental hand. Where the script differs from its relatives is in the drawing, not in the analysis, which is why a Ranjana chart and a Devanagari chart can be read against each other line for line even by someone who can read only one of them.