
Show HN: Simple Bhagavad Gita Search Web App - cvaidya1986
https://www.searchgita.com
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whistlerbrk
Hey this is excellent! I just finished a survey philosophy course which
started off with the Gita and continually returned to it, I was super
disappointed when I found most online editions plastered with ads and barely
readable (by modern standards).

I agree with the other commenter, I expected clicking on a verse would jump me
that position in the whole body of text, but I'm sure this is just your
starting point. Well done OP

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cvaidya1986
So thankful! The whole body of text as in you can see below and above quotes
or how do you envision the UI when you click on the quote? Would you also like
this for other types of philosophy too? Shiva Sutras? Buddha? Zen?

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whistlerbrk
Shantideva, and commentaries on his work.

Yes, anything would be great.

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cbcoutinho
Typing two words results in the second word being matched with non-contiguous
letters. For instance, 'Krishna and' will match with

^Krishna) ^am the source of the origi^n as well as the ^dissolution of the
entire universe. (7.06)

Not sure if this was intended

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cvaidya1986
Search is improved!

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maxxxxx
When I type "entitled" I get matches for "entities", "There", "Divine" and lot
of others. Does it search for every single letter of the search term? That
doesn't seem very useful.

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gordon_freeman
Similar to this: when I type "Bhima" it also gets me "Bhisma". That means it
does not recognize the structure of a word.

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cvaidya1986
Typing Bhima, you get Bhima quotes first then Bhishma now!

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cvaidya1986
Added click and jump into specific section and go forward and backward in that
new place directly from search results.Also added chapter names!

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magnetomax
Hey! Excellent Work! Just found a typo in following sentence: "I am the wind
among the purifiers and Lord Rama among the warriors. I am the crocodile among
the fishes and the holy Gariga among the rivers. (10.31)"

I think it should be Ganga. :)

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cvaidya86
Of course you're right! I shall correct it when I get a chance! Any more
suggestions welcome!

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eggy
Is there a way to click on the results to bring up the surrounding text?

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cvaidya86
Ah you mean jumping to the place in the Gita? Or show the sequential quotes
below and above?

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eggy
Yes to both, if possible. I read the Gita first when given a free copy by the
ISKC (Hare Krishnas) in Brooklyn back in 1978. Then I read all sorts of texts
after taking a comparative religion class in high school. I'd love to have
this to study it better.

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cvaidya1986
added!

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the_common_man
Does this only search the English translation? I tried the famous 'yada yada
hi dharmasya' but it was showing some random results.

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cvaidya1986
Ah yes only English translation for now. Ok I will add it!

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schoen
I feel like the transliteration issues may be pretty complex! Someone using
the site might choose to search for any of

यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य (in Unicode)

yadā-yadā hi dharmasya

yadā yadā hi dharmasya

yadaa yadaa hi dhamasya

yada yada hi dharmasya

If you want to allow search using transliteration, there are a number of
interesting algorithmic and non-algorithmic questions about the range of
different transliteration mechanisms that people may use.

Also, for a reason that I don't quite understand, people transliterating
Sanskrit can be very inconsistent about where they do and don't transcribe
spaces. Are the spaces perhaps not present in the original? For example
ग्लानिर्भवति might be transcribed as "glānir bhavati" or "glānirbhavati",
which may also be treated differently for search purposes.

(I don't actually know any Sanskrit; I'm just interested in linguistics and
writing systems.)

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carlsborg
Thats fast. Can you comment on the architecture?

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kthakore2
Looking at the source. All the text is loaded with the HTML (in a <script>
tag), which is filtered using a fuzzy search implementation.

Very simple and fast considering the text doesn't change ;)

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cvaidya1986
Keep it simple :-)

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cvaidya86
I'm planning to add share buttons for twitter and FB. Let me kno if you'd like
other features or a mobile app?

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wavefunction
Ability to annotate? That's obviously a lot of work though. It could provide
context or scholarly opinion/analysis.

Maybe "navigation" buttons so if you find a passage you can click next or
previous to see the preceding or subsequent passages.

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cvaidya1986
Hmm annotation is interesting. It could possibly also clutter the user
experience. Possibly sharing could enable people to discuss it within their
own social networks? I definitely heard a lot about clicking through prev and
next passages especially on search result quotes. Thanks for the feedback!

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atdt
Nice work. It would be nice if the citation were logically and visually
separated from the body of each verse.

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cvaidya86
Like verse then Chapter name and verse number at the bottom right?

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ramsundhar20
Can I help implement a full text search?

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cvaidya1986
What I like about fuzzy search is that if I search something like 'Constant
Remembrance' which is a spiritual concept but it doesn't exist in those exact
words in the Gita, fuzzy search comes up with a quote quite close to the
concept simply because it is fuzzy. How would full text search work? Would it
come up with zero results if the search was not precise?

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bill_rr
Exactly. That's how it should work. I searched "love" and got passages "Lord
Krishna [...] grieve" which the search included because of LO (from LOrd) and
VE (from grieVE) - no mention at all of "love," so not what I was looking for.
Just go with standard search.

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cvaidya86
Point taken!

