The dictionary entry for ‘visaya’ has at the bottom the Sanskrit reference:
cp. Sk. viśaya, fr. vi + śī
This can’t be correct. It should be viṣaya. Monier Williams has
prob. either fr1. viṣ-,“to act”, or fr. vi-+ si-,“to extend”
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Well, you’re right, but on checking, that is in fact what the PTS dictionary says. As is well known, and openly acknowledged by its authors, there are many problems with that dictionary, and the application of Sanskrit roots is one of them. While we correct typos and other obvious errors, we don’t revise the opinions of the authors. So unfortunately I think we should leave this one as is.
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Hm, I well understand that you don’t want to change the original dictionary. On the other hand the whole purpose of it to be on the site is for users to find correct references. Shouldn’t there be a way for users to see the original entry but also see that the original Sanskrit reference is wrong or doubtful, with a recognizable suggestion by SC?
Or differently, to me this borders to a typo, after all
Visaya PTS: reach, sphere (of the senses) range, scope; object
PTS Skt. reference viśaya: uncertainty, doubt; the middle, centre
Skt. viṣaya: sphere, dominion, kingdom, territory, region, district, country, abode
There are thousands of errors in the PTS dictionary. The only practical approach is to leave it as is, and focus on creating better newer ones.
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Another possibility might be to embellish a copy of the PTS Dict with color-coding of passages corrected or otherwise modified, and where a link behind the colored passage opened a pop-up with the alternative or additional information.
Of course, a nice tool might be a super (or meta?) digital dictionary with the material from the other dictionaries accessible for comparison or contrast – something many of us do repeatedly individually?
Be my guest. It’s 960,000 words long.