What ಄ means
It marks an auspicious opening, rather than spelling a sound. Kannada-script inscriptions include Nanjanagud around the 10th century and Aihole in 1118 CE. The Siddham script is a separate writing system with its own related opening sign.
Formal and epigraphic; it belongs to inscription openings and their study.
Read it as an invocation, not as a letter in the line.
Related characters
5꣼
Devanagari Sign Siddham
Devanagari's cognate invocation sign.
౷
Telugu Sign Siddham
Telugu's counterpart opening sign.
Sharada Sign Siddham
Sharada's cognate opening sign.
Siddham Sign Siddham
The separate Siddham script's own opening sign.
Tibetan Mark Initial Yig Mgo Mdun Ma
A related Tibetan mark used at text openings.
Questions 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.
More like this
10
How to type or find ಄
- Also called
- siddhirastu
- Search it as
- siddham invocation · Kannada invocation mark · inscription opening · auspicious beginning
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Windows (Word)
Windows
HTML
಄CSS
\0C84Unicode search
Search “Kannada sign siddham” in a character picker with Unicode name search.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
಄
HTML hex
಄
CSS content
content: "\0C84";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E0%B2%84
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.