What 僧 means
It names a Buddhist monk or the Buddhist monastic community.
The Chinese character 僧 entered Buddhist vocabulary as a transcription of the Sanskrit word saṃgha, meaning the monastic community. It can name that community—the Saṅgha, one of Buddhism’s Three Jewels—or an individual monk. A supplement to the early Chinese dictionary Shuowen jiezi glosses 僧 as a Buddhist cleric.
僧 is a Japanese JIS X 0213 compatibility character, kept to preserve that encoded form rather than mark a second religious meaning.
Why does 僧 sometimes become 僧?
Unicode normalization can turn 僧 into 僧.
That conversion preserves the reading and meaning but changes the code point. Keep the compatibility form only when exact source data or an encoded distinction matters; ordinary modern text normally uses 僧.
Unicode’s Japanese-text guidance, as of 2026-09-14, recommends a Japanese-localized font. Regional CJK fonts can draw different shapes for the same Han character; the font changes its appearance, not its meaning.
How can I type UFA31?
Enter UFA31 in a Unicode-capable input tool.
A JIS X 0213-aware converter may preserve 僧; check the result’s code point. If an input method returns 僧 instead, it chose the unified character.
Technical and source-preserving: keep it for encoded-text fidelity, not as a decorative stand-in for 僧.
For an ordinary word for monk, use 僧; normalization may erase the compatibility distinction.
Who writes 僧
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Don't confuse it with
1
Questions people ask
1Why does 僧 show as a box on some devices?
Not every system ships a font for the CJK Compatibility Ideographs block. Where none is installed, the character shows as an empty box; adding a font such as Noto fixes it. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.
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How to type or find 僧
- Search it as
- 僧 · Buddhist monk · monastic community · JIS X 0213 · Unicode normalization
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
僧\FA31Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.