What ꣭ means
It marks namana, a bend or sinking in Sāmavedic singing.
The Sāmaveda is one of the four major Vedic texts; its sung form is Sāmagāna. In South Indian manuscripts, ꣭ marks namana there. Here, “letter na” names the sign’s shape: ꣭ does not spell the ordinary consonant न. It is performance notation, not ordinary Devanagari spelling.
It belongs to a family of Sāmavedic marks that includes combining digits, letters, and avagraha, a Sanskrit sign. Other marks in the set can show tone, vowel length, vibration, or a skipped tone.
Why is ꣭ typed after the syllable?
It follows the syllable in text and renders over it.
A font draws the mark over its base letter; a bare mark may look detached or blank if the font or editor lacks support.
The Sāmaveda is both recited and sung as Sāmagāna, and the two use different notation. Kauthuma and Rāṇāyanīya use these encoded marks in Sāmagāna; Jaiminīya may write chant details between lines instead. These lineages differ in how they name, write, and sing their texts.
Specialist Vedic performance notation, suited to work with Sāmavedic texts and singing.
Do not read it as the ordinary Devanagari consonant न.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does ꣭ show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type ꣭
꣭\A8EDCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.