Siddham Letter NNA

It writes the retroflex nasal in Sanskrit. 𑖜 is a Siddham consonant for the “n” sound made with the tongue tip curled back. In Sanskrit transliteration—the writing of Sanskrit sounds with other letters—it is commonly written ṇa.

Each Siddham consonant has a short “a” built into it. A vowel sign replaces that vowel; the virama mark removes it and can join the consonant to the next one.

How did Siddham travel across Asia?

Siddham grew from South Asian manuscript writing and traveled with Buddhism.

The script developed in South Asia around the 5th century CE. Its name comes from siddhaṃ, meaning “accomplished,” written at the head of documents. Siddham carried Sanskrit Buddhist writing to China in the 6th–7th centuries CE, then to Korea and Japan. In China, the name also covered the study of Sanskrit sounds. Japanese Shingon and Tendai traditions used Siddham in sutras, mantras, seed syllables, and ritual objects, helping preserve Sanskrit sounds in Buddhist transmission.

Siddham is a Brahmi-based script closely related to Sharada and structurally similar to Devanagari. Unicode 16.0 uses Japanese Siddham forms as representative glyphs; regional and calligraphic forms can look different.