What ँ means
It nasalizes the vowel, not a separate consonant.
In Vedic Sanskrit, sandhi (sound change between neighboring sounds) could alter or drop a following nasal while leaving the preceding vowel nasalized. Sanskrit manuscript practice did not always distinguish candrabindu from anusvara as consistently as Hindi and Nepali spelling. Anunasika is another name for nasalization.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does candrabindu sometimes look like a dot?
It can. An upper vowel sign may leave no room for the crescent, so Hindi may use a plain dot for the same nasalization.
How to type ँ
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 0901, then Alt+X to get ँ.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “devanagari sign candrabindu”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 0901, then Enter or Space.
HTML
ँCSS
\0901Lexilogos keyboard
How do I type ँ? In Lexilogos’s Devanagari keyboard, M enters ं; MM enters ँ (as of 2026).
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
ँ
HTML hex
ँ
CSS content
content: "\0901";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E0%A4%81
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.