Siddhaṃ script

Siddham script
Siddhaṃ
𑖭𑖰𑖟𑖿𑖠𑖽
The word Siddhaṃ in Siddhaṃ script
Script type
Period
c. late 6th century[1]c. 1200 CE[note 1]
DirectionLeft-to-right 
LanguagesSanskrit
Related scripts
Parent systems
Egyptian
Child systems
  • Nepalese[5]
  • Vessali script
Sister systems
Sharada,[2][3][5] Tibetan,[4] Kalinga, Bhaiksuki
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Sidd (302), ​Siddham, Siddhaṃ, Siddhamātṛkā
Unicode
Unicode alias
Siddham
Unicode range
U+11580–U+115FF

Final Accepted Script Proposal

Variant Forms

Siddhāṃ (also known as Kutila[5][8]) is an Indic script used in India from the 6th century to the 13th century. Also known in its later evolved form as Siddhamātṛkā, Siddham is a medieval Brahmic abugida, derived from the Gupta script and ancestral to the Nāgarī, Eastern Nagari, Tirhuta, Odia and Nepalese scripts.[9][10] The Siddham script was widely used by Indian Buddhists and still remains in use by East Asian Buddhists, especially for writing mantras, seed syllables, and dharanis.[11]

The word Siddhaṃ means "accomplished", "completed" or "perfected" in Sanskrit. The script received its name from the practice of writing Siddhaṃ, or Siddhaṃ astu ('may there be perfection'), at the head of documents. Other names for the script include bonji (Japanese: 梵字) "Brahma's characters" and "Sanskrit script" and Chinese: 悉曇文字; pinyin: Xītán wénzi "Siddhaṃ script".

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Singh 2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b https://archive.org/details/epigraphyindianepigraphyrichardsalmonoup_908_D/mode/2up,p39-41
  3. ^ a b Malatesha Joshi, R.; McBride, Catherine (11 June 2019). Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography. Springer. ISBN 9783030059774.
  4. ^ a b Daniels, P.T. (January 2008). "Writing systems of major and minor languages". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. ^ a b c d e Masica, Colin (1993). The Indo-Aryan languages. p. 143.
  6. ^ Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh (2003). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge language family series. London: Routledge. p. 109. ISBN 0-7007-1130-9. In the northeast, meanwhile separately evolved into a form referred to as 'proto-Bengali' or Gaudī, which prevailed until the fourteenth century, by which time it had begun to be differentiated into the modern eastern scripts, Bangla-Asamiya, Maithilī and Oriya.
  7. ^ Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography, R. Malatesha Joshi, Catherine McBride (2019), p. 27.
  8. ^ "Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary 1899 Basic". www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de. Retrieved 2023-05-24.
  9. ^ "Devanagari: Development, Amplification, and Standardisation". Central Hindi Directorate, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Govt. of India. 3 April 1977. Retrieved 3 April 2018 – via Google Books.
  10. ^ Rajan, Vinodh; Sharma, Shriramana (2012-06-28). "L2/12-221: Comments on naming the "Siddham" encoding" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-08-19.
  11. ^ Chaudhuri, Saroj Kumar. Sanskrit in China and Japan. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 2011.


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