NOTE: Along with this file, please read the descriptive essay on
the Mahabharata-Tatparya-Nirnaya (sent as a hard copy, and also
available on this disk as a PDF file, essay.pdf).

This disk contains the source materials for two versions of the
Mahabharata-Tatparya-Nirnaya.  There is a Devanagari version
(Devanagari being the traditional alphabet used with Sanskrit),
and one in accented Roman, the style preferred by contemporary
Indologists. The former version is created using the ITRANS
freeware which runs with LaTeX/TeX, and the latter solely with
LaTeX/TeX.  In either case, several PostScript files were created,
then concatenated (using Unix `cat', nothing fancy--see below),
then the combined file was converted to PDF using Unix ps2pdf and
Adobe Acrobat v. 5.0. The final product presented to the public of
the Devanagari MBTN is called mbtn.pdf (included on this disk),
and that of the Roman version is called mbtnr.pdf (likewise).

The following are the text files in the
Mahabharata-Tatparya-Nirnaya (henceforth, MBTN) group:

mbtn.itx                  Contains the complete text (Devanagari version).
mbtn01r.tex               Contains chapter 1 (Romanized version).
mbtn2_4r.tex              Contains chapters 2-4 (R).
mbtn_5-10r.tex            Contains chapters 5-10 (R).
mbtn_11-21r.tex           Contains chapters 11-21 (R).
mbtn_22r1.tex             Contains the first part of chapter 22 (R).
mbtn_22r2.tex             Contains the second part of chapter 22 (R).
mbtn_23-32r.tex           Contains chapters 23-32, & the Yamaka-Bharata (R).
mbtn_cover.itx            Cover page for the D version.
mbtn_cover2.tex           Inside cover for the D version.
mbtnr_cover.tex           Cover pages for the R version.
mbtn_p.tex                Prefatory material for the D version.
mbtn_pr.tex               Prefatory material for the R version.
sort_new.itx              A concordance of verse-hemistiches (D).
sUchI.itx                 A list of authorities cited (D).

All of the above have corresponding PostScript files (created with
ITRANS for .itx files, with LaTeX for .tex files) in the
appropriate directory; then there are also the following, which do
not have corresponding text files:

mbtn_toc.ps               A table of contents, created with MS Word.
mbtn_tot.ps               Concatenation of all source PS files (D).
mbtnr_tot.ps              Concatenation of all source PS files (R).
palimar.ps                A Greeting/Foreword to our edition, in Kannada.

The following is the procedure we used in creating an MBTN file
(Devanagari version--the Roman is similar except that only LaTeX
is used, and the filenames are different):

1>  Compile the mbtn.itx file using ITRANS and LaTeX to get a file
mbtn.ps, the PostScript output.  On dvaita.org (eskimo.com, login
dvaita) the procedure (after login) is:

% cd ~/usr/local/bin

% iform mbtn

-- where % (not typed) is the Unix/Linux prompt symbol.  This file is
most often the one to be changed for updates, but does not have to be
recompiled unless it is.  However, the version history is contained in
this file, and must be kept current and informative.

2>  Compile the mbtn_cover1.itx file similarly.  Except for changes
to the cover itself (rare), this does not have to be done for updates.

3>  Compile the sUchI.itx file similarly.  Except for changes
to the list of authorities cited, this does not have to be done for
updates.

4>  Compile the sort_new.itx file similarly.  The concordance may need
changing if errors are corrected in the main file.

5>  Compile the mbtn_cover2.tex file in the standard LaTeX fashion
(note that this is not an ITRANS file and uses no Devanagari).  On
most systems, this is simply:

% latex mbtn_cover2

This file has the current version number and date, and must be changed
for each update.  LaTeX compilation is best done outside the dvaita
account, as the installation there (used with ITRANS) is old.

6>  Compile the mbtn_p.tex file, which contains the Foreword,
Preface, etc., using LaTeX similarly.

7> Verify that the following files:

  mbtn_cover.ps
  mbtn_cover2.ps
  mbtn_toc.ps
  mbtn_p.ps
  mbtn.ps
  palimar.ps
  sUchI.ps
  sort_new.ps


-- are all available.  The ToC file was created using ITRANSlator and
Microsoft Word ("print" to file to obtain the PostScript document) and
does not need changing in most cases.  The palimar.ps file should be
available in the PostScript directory, and contains a formatted
version of the AshIrvachana of the late H.H. Palimar Swamiji.

8> On Unix, concatenate the files using the `cat' command as follows:
cat mbtn_cover.ps mbtn_cover2.ps palimar.ps mbtn_toc.ps mbtn_p.ps mbtn.ps sUchI.ps sort_new.ps > mbtn_tot.ps

(On other systems, use whatever means is appropriate, taking care that
the files are handled raw, with no modification by the software used.)

9> Convert the resulting file mbtn_tot.ps to Adobe PDF format,
using Acrobat Distiller or other means.  On Unix, a freeware program
called ps2pdf can be used as follows:

% ps2pdf mbtn_tot.pdf

Finally, the file must be modified using Adobe Acrobat 4.0 or later,
so that (i) printing and selecting are allowed, but modification and
annotation are not; and (ii) suitable boilerplate information
("Document Info") is inserted.

==

Shrisha Rao <shrao@dvaita.org>

Created:    02/23/2001
Modified:   02/23/2001, 2002-05-28