Odia digit five

It marks the number five in Odia writing.

In Odia numerals, also called Oriya numerals, its place in a longer decimal number matters: ୧୫ is fifteen, while ୫୦ is fifty. It is a distinct character from 5, although both mean the same number.

Where did Odia numerals come from?

They grew gradually from number signs in the ancient Brahmi script.

Brahmi was an ancient South Asian writing system. Odisha's earliest surviving inscriptional records date to the Mauryan period—the era of the Maurya dynasty—in the 3rd century BCE; that dates the records, not this exact modern-shaped digit.

Inscriptions and grants engraved on copper plates preserved political and economic information. A later step was decimal notation with zero, recorded in inscriptions of the Somavamsi ruling dynasty in the 10th century. Other Brahmi-derived numeral traditions developed their own script-specific fives, including Bengali ৫ and Devanagari ५.

How do I type ୫?

Use an Odia keyboard layout or Unicode hex entry.

The documented routes as of 2026 include Windows Odia layout switching and Word's 0B6B followed by Alt+X shortcut.