I just found this thread. Not sure if this source may be useful.
This link has a Sri Lankan monk chanting most of the known scope of Tipitaka. Would be helpful to get idea of Sri Lankan style of chanting.
Hello everyone 
,
Are ‘vh’ (in words such as avhaya, avheti, avhāna, jivhā, upavhyati (PTS), upavhayati (DPD), passavho, samavhaya) and ‘ḷh’ (aḷhaka, āḷha, āsāḷhā, vūḷha) treated as conjunct/double consonants (thus are split into 2 syllables:
av-ha-ya
jiv-hā
u-pav-hya-ti
u-pav-ha-ya-ti
pas-sav-ho
aḷ-ha-ka
āḷ-ha
āsāḷ-hā
vūḷ-ha
) or is it read/chanted as single aspirated consonants (
a-vha-ya
ji-vhā
u-pa-vhya-ti
u-pa-vha-ya-ti
pas-sa-vho
a-ḷha-ka
ā-ḷha
ā-sā-ḷhā
vū-ḷha
)?
bh ch dh ḍh gh jh kh ph th ṭh
These two-lettered notations with h denote an aspirated, airy sound, distinct from the hard, crisp sound of the single consonant. They should be considered as one unit. However, the other combinations with h, i.e., lh, mh, ñh, and vh, do count as two consonants (for example in the Pāli words ‘jivhā’ or ‘muḷho’).
Source: Chanting Book – Volume 1 by Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, 2015.
So according to the source above, ‘vh’ should be split.
Whereas in here:
Otherwise—if the long syllable ends in a vowel or one
of the consonants m, n, ṅ, ṇ, ñ, y, l, or ḷ—it’s unstopped, as the sound doesn’t stop. (Syllables never end in v, r, or any of the aspirated consonants dh, bh, etc. …
Source: Tone Rules: for Pāḷi Chanting in the Thai Tradition by Bhikkhu Thanissaro. Metta Forest Monastery, 2016.
‘vh’ shouldn’t be split, because otherwise the preceding syllable would end in ‘v’.
Then there is the third source that opposes both of the sources above in regard to ‘ḷh’ that it should not be taken as a conjunct consonant, but taken as an aspirate:
In presenting Pāḷi in Roman letters aspirates are indicated by digraphs (kh, gh, ch, jh, etc.) These are not to be taken as conjunct consonants, as they represent but a single sound, and are to be counted as single letters are elsewhere (indeed, in the Sinhalese, Burmese, Thai & Indian scripts in general they are normally represented by single letters). Note that ḷh is also an aspirate, even though it is written with two characters in the above scripts.
Source: An Outline of the Metres in the Pāḷi Canon by Ānandajoti Bhikkhu, 2013.
And how do you decide which is the most accurate Pāḷi phonology’s set of rules, one that is the closest to how they were pronounced back in 1 BCE when the complete canon was first written in Sri Lanka?
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It’s just a thing of getting to “know your sources.” When we read materials written in English for a Western audience, these are not the original grammar manuals. If you want to check something, it’s better to go back to the traditional grammars to compare.
Syllables can totally end in v, r in Pali/Sanskrit, but I don’t know what Ajahn Geoff was trying to say as snippet is out of context.
The “.lh” as aspirate tradition is a minority tradition, somebody can check this but I think it’s mostly from the Saddaniti. I don’t know how to make an aspirate .lh sound but maybe someone can inform me. I think it’s ok to just ignore this tradition, as it is an outlier and also makes no sense.
Re: how to decide what is most accurate. Read widely? The more exposure you have, the easier it is to work out what is going on.
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You couldn’t have heard the authentic sarabhañña (Sanskrit: svara-bhaṇya) as it doesnt exist in Pāli and has never existed in Pāli. It was considered archaic even in the Buddha’s lifetime, used mainly by brahmins educated in the Vedic tradition (if you listen to vedic recitation it is hard to miss). What Pāli-reciters may call/chant as sarabhañña today is most certainly not it.
For example you can hear the real sarabhañña here - listen to the svara (pitch) variations when they pronounce the vowels - this is from the first sūkta (in Pāli: ‘sutta’) of the R̥gveda. This svara-bhaṇya recitation is what is called sarabhañña in the pāli texts, but such a recitation is much older than the Pali canon and has never existed in Pali itself.
This is a Vedic practice to pronounce ḍ & ḍh as ḷ & ḷh respectively (when the ḍ or ḍh occur between two vowels). In this example from the R̥gveda 7.86.7 below, you can see both the vowel pitch (udātta) markings as well as the word mīḷhuṣa which has the ‘ḷh’ sound occuring between two vowels
upasádyāya mīḷhúṣa āsyé juhutā havíḥ ǀ
yó no nédiṣṭhamā́pyam ǁ
Again like the sarabhañña, it used to be pronounced correctly in the time of the Buddha’s lifetime (in the Buddha’s native language) but the correct pronunciation doesn’t exist in Pāli.
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Ok, so I have concluded that the splitting of vh and ḷh phonetically depends on which one of the two points of reference one would like to take: 1.) Sanskrit phonology, thus not splitting them (ji-vhā & ā-sā-ḷhā), or 2.) the phonology of Pāḷi descendants, such as SInhalese, which whens vh and ḷh would be phonetically split (jiv-hā & ā-sāḷ-hā).
I have created a table of all possible combinations of Pāḷi consonants (conjunct consonants) along with their phonetic splitting to find any other ambiguity aside from vh and ḷh. (And my goodness, there are so many that I didn’t know of!)
I have also added examples of Pāḷi words (and a few with their Sanskrit root) for some of the combinations along with comments and brief exposition taken from Pāḷi phonology guides.
Please do let me know if there are any existing conjunct consonants that are missing, inaccurate or could use supplemental information. The google sheet file is enabled for commenting by anyone. I’ll update them accordingly.
Web view: A Table of All Possible Pāḷi Conjunct Consonants & Their Phonetic Splitting - Google Drive
Google Sheet view / suggest edits: A Table of All Possible Pāḷi Conjunct Consonants & Their Phonetic Splitting - Google Sheets
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