Siddham letter E

It writes the Sanskrit vowel e as an independent letter.

In Siddham, this form writes a syllable that begins with e. After a consonant, a dependent vowel sign marks the same vowel inside the syllable. The letter itself supplies a sound, not a complete message; its Buddhist significance comes from the surrounding text or ritual.

Why is Siddham used in Japan?

Buddhist teaching carried Siddham into Japanese ritual use.

Siddham began as a way to write Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist monks studied it as a phonetic script and as a subject in its own right. A palm-leaf manuscript at Hōryū-ji was brought from China to Japan in 609. Japanese tradition links Siddham teaching to Kūkai in the early ninth century.

North Indian inscriptions show Siddhamātrikā, also called Kuṭila, a recognizable stage in the script's development from the sixth through about the tenth centuries. By the eighth century, related branches included Śāradā, Proto-Bengali/Gauḍī, and Nāgarī. Students meet the letter as a vowel in Sanskrit study; in Japanese esoteric Buddhist practice, it can be part of a seed syllable used in ritual.

Why does 𑖊 look different in different fonts?

The letter stays the same while fonts draw it differently.

In Unicode's Siddham encoding, reference glyphs follow Japanese forms, reflecting the Buddhist communities that kept the script in use. Other fonts can draw 𑖊 differently; that changes its appearance, not its vowel value.

A box or blank at display time can mean font or app support is missing. The app also needs to support Siddham shaping and font fallback, so a suitable font may not fix display in every app.