11:02 Jun 1, 2011 

I'm puzzled as to where Graham's suggestion about the morphology could have come from. The final -a is just the normal short a ("schwa") at the end of the dictionary form of masculine and neuter nouns.

The word is derived, as I understand it, from the stem श्रम् śram, which has forms meaning meaning "hard work", "exertion", "act of austerity", "spiritual exercise", so an āśrama is a hermitage or retreat, a place for spiritual devotion, particularly through austerity. (see http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/monier/serv... , bottom of 1st column: see also श्रमण śramaṇa, middle of 2nd column.)

09:45 May 31, 2011 

for a correct transcription you mustn't omit the macron (bar) over the first letter a.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sansk...

09:46 May 30, 2011 

since the text deals with archaeology – and I guess referring to 10th century AD or earlier – , my feeling would be to follow the source text in using the Sanskritised form rather than the less formal anglicised form (but in modern transcription).

23:03 May 29, 2011 

then I would recommend using modern standard transcription (wiktionary is a correct example except that you don't need the hyphen)

23:01 May 29, 2011 

it's describing current archeological research of these structures

22:57 May 29, 2011 

what period is your source text from? modern or 19th century?

22:40 May 29, 2011 

anglicised: ashram (particularly in an Indian context)
phonetic: the transliteration used in your French doc. is not common in English. the sanskrit word आश्रम is standardly transliterated āśrama.
ā (a-macron) represents long a
ś (s-acute) represents palatal s (roughly, "sh" in English).

@yolanda:
two qualifications to your answer:
- the language is Sanskrit (Vedic refers to a specific variety used in the scriptures)
- the dictionary you link to is a good reference but 150 years old. 19C transliteration was very unsystematic. I wouldn't retain that transliteration except for very specific contextual reasons.