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Abbreviations & Citations

Dictionary entries are dense with abbreviations — for cited texts, authors, and grammatical categories. This page explains how to read them and how to cite CDSL.

Reading entry abbreviations​

Abbreviations in entry bodies are marked up so they can be expanded and (for literary sources) linked to scans:

TagRoleExample content
<ls>Literary source citationa text + locus, e.g. a Veda or epic reference
<ab>General abbreviationcf., q.v., grammatical shorthand
<lex>Lexical/grammatical categorygender, part of speech

Each dictionary has its own abbreviation key, taken from its print front matter. Those legends are transcribed on the dictionary's csl-doc page (source/dictionaries/{code}.rst and its prefaces/) — the csl-doc column in the catalog links each one.

Citing the Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries​

The project's official citation form (from the front page):

In-text: (Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries)

Bibliographic reference: Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries, version 2.10.0, Cologne University, accessed on [date], https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de

When quoting a specific dictionary, also name the original print work (author, title, year — see the catalog).

Acknowledging data in a website or application​

If you reuse the data in a site or app, the project asks for:

This website / application uses data from Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries, Cologne University, accessed on [date].

Licensing​

The per-dictionary GitHub repositories carry a CC BY-SA 4.0 LICENSE — reuse must preserve attribution and share-alike. (Confirm terms for any individual dictionary against its own repo if in doubt.)