What 𑌏 means
It is the standalone Grantha letter for Sanskrit e.
In Sanskrit, e is inherently long, so “EE” in the Unicode-style name reflects vowel length, not emphasis. The sound value shifts by language: Grantha 𑌏 can correspond to the short e of Tamil and Malayalam; a dot marks short e in Grantha’s own vowel system. It is an independent vowel letter, unlike 𑍇, the dependent vowel sign that attaches to a consonant.
Why was Grantha used with Tamil?
Grantha let writers record Sanskrit in a South Indian script.
Grantha grew from the Brahmi family through the Pallava writing tradition; recognizable forms appear around the fifth century. It represented voiced, aspirated, and clustered consonant contrasts that Tamil script did not mark.
Grantha also carried Vedic material and Manipravalam, a mixed Sanskrit–Tamil literary language. Manuscripts and inscriptions could mix Grantha with Tamil rather than assign one script to each language. A manuscript study from 2023–2025 describes mixed-script commentary and how early print and nationalist policies later obscured some of this practice. A 2010 encoding proposal records Vedic and Sanskrit communities using Grantha in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Sri Lanka. Grantha is historically connected with Malayalam and Tigalari scripts, and influenced Sinhala and Thai scripts.
Why can typed Grantha look blank?
The font may lack Grantha coverage.
The Grantha INSCRIPT keyboard layout, a key arrangement for Grantha, can enter the letter, but the app also needs a font with Grantha glyphs. As of 2026, Microsoft Word is a documented example of an application that may select a font without that coverage.
Formal and specialist; it points to Grantha writing tied to Sanskrit, Vedic texts, or manuscript work.
In Tamil contexts, script choice can carry language and cultural history; 𑌏 is not mere decoration.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why do some references call 𑌏 “Grantha Letter E”?
An early Unicode proposal called it LETTER E. At the 2010 expert meeting, the label changed to LETTER EE to match naming in other South Indian scripts. Older references may keep the earlier label; it does not indicate a second reading.
How to type 𑌏
𑌏\1130FCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.