Nandinagari Letter E

Yes: 𑦪 is Nandinagari’s independent vowel letter e. Use it when the vowel stands alone; after a consonant, use the dependent vowel sign instead.

Where did Nandinagari come from?

It developed from the central Nagari branch of Brahmi-based scripts. Brahmi is an ancient South Asian writing system, and Devanagari is a related sister script. Nandinagari’s top strokes generally stop within one written syllable; modern Devanagari can connect them across syllables.

Its use in southern India spans the 11th–19th centuries. A 1204 CE copper-plate grant—a royal record engraved on metal—from Hoysala ruler Vīra Ballāḷa II is described as one of the earliest specimens.

What was Nandinagari used for?

It served Sanskrit writing and also Kannada in Karnataka. Nandinagari appears especially in Sanskrit manuscripts and inscriptions from south Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Surviving examples appear on palm leaves, paper, stone, copper plates, and coins.

Vijayanagara, a southern Indian kingdom, used it as an official script from 1336–1646 CE. The surviving record includes royal grant documents, Vedic texts (religious works in Sanskrit), and other learned writing. A 2017 Unicode proposal noted scholarly work on reading inscriptions, preserving manuscripts, and OCR (software that recognizes text in scans).