Kaithi Letter Sa

Kaithi sa is a consonant, not a standalone message. Inside a word it gives the /s/ sound plus an inherent “a” vowel, which a vowel sign or the virama mark can change; alone, the glyph carries no message.

Its nearest confusions inside Kaithi are 𑂬 (sha) and 𑂭 (ssa); some Uttar Pradesh and Bihar varieties wrote sa and ssa as sha, so spelling follows the word.

Why was Kaithi made?

Scribal work; its exact origin is unknown. As of 2026 the encoding proposal treats a possible copperplate land grant of about 1090 as conditional and puts an established script by the 16th century, with official documents under Sher Shah Suri.

It served routine scribal writing: administration, letters, receipts, land records, later courts and schools; standardized for education in 1875 and adopted by Bihar for courts and offices in 1880.

Literary use appears in 17th-century manuscripts, then religious texts and missionary printing; by the early 20th century Devanagari and other scripts had largely displaced it. A Brahmic Indic script distinct from Devanagari, Kaithi is historically tied to Gujarati and Bengali and proposed as a source of Mahajani and Syloti Nagri.

How do I type 𑂮?

Use a Kaithi input tool and pick the key labeled “sa”. Roman-letter mappings vary by tool, so follow the transliteration instead of guessing from a Devanagari layout.

As of 2026 the display trap is font coverage: Kaithi has three language-associated presentation styles and some fonts add a headstroke-like line; a box or odd outline is a font issue, not another character.