Kawi Digit Four

This is the Kawi sign for four. Kawi is a Brahmi-derived script used from the 8th through 16th centuries in island Southeast Asia. It wrote Old Javanese, Sanskrit, Old Malay, Old Balinese, and Old Sundanese; its numerals appeared in inscriptions, administrative records, religious works, and books on palm leaves.

Kawi developed from Pallava, a South Asian script in the Brahmi family. The 732 CE Canggal inscription is written in Pallava; Plumpungan and other eighth- and ninth-century inscriptions show a local Kawi hand emerging. Kawi spread through Java, Bali, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and the Philippines, with regional writing styles changing its forms. It became an ancestor of later scripts such as Javanese and Balinese. In Java, Javanese took over many uses in the 14th and 15th centuries. Malay writing also expanded through Jawi, a separate Arabic-derived tradition. In the 21st century, Kawi drew renewed interest, including social-media use to write modern Javanese or Indonesian.

Why can 𑽔 look different?

Historical forms and a punctuation mark can blur it. Kawi shapes changed over centuries and varied by region, so a modern font cannot show every historical form. In some inscriptions, Kawi punctuation space filler 𑽈 resembles 𑽔; in others the shapes differ. In a photograph, compare its place in the line or a transcription before deciding.