Khojki Letter Ja

It is the Khojki consonant ja, read inside a word. Neighboring letters and vowel signs shape the syllable. A dependent vowel sign changes the vowel read with the consonant; a virama cancels that vowel.

Khojki is not traced to one clear invention: manuscripts place it in use by the 16th century, and scholarship links its Sindh history with older Lohanaki and related forms. Nizari Ismaili tradition credits Pir Sadruddin with spreading the script, but that account does not establish him as its sole inventor.

Khojki began as a mercantile script and was later adapted for Satpanth and Nizari Ismaili religious literature, especially ginans—devotional poems and hymns. It belongs to the Landa family of scripts, a group of related writing systems. Gurmukhi is a separate relative used for Sikh sacred literature; Khojki's Sindh forms are closer to Khudawadi.

Where was Khojki used?

It served Sindhi trade and a multilingual religious corpus. Khojki was used to write Sindhi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Siraiki, related Hindi varieties, and some Arabic and Persian. Manuscripts preserve ginans and related texts circulated among Khoja communities in Sindh, Gujarat, Punjab, and diaspora communities.

During the 20th century, printing, Gujarati editions, and Roman transliteration changed how these texts circulated. As of 2026, primers and ceremonial books still carry Khojki in Nizari Ismaili communities and diaspora.