Siddham letter ya

Enter ASCII y in bonji-input.

bonji-input accepts ISO 15919, IAST, or Harvard-Kyoto transliteration; its ASCII y mapping produces 𑖧. Its yu example produces 𑖧𑖲, with the second character adding the u vowel.

As of 2026, its instructions recommend Noto Sans Siddham if this glyph appears as a box; macOS Big Sur includes that font. A box indicates missing font coverage, not a different character.

What does Siddham letter ya mean?

It writes the Sanskrit syllable ya, not a standalone idea.

In Siddham, 𑖧 writes the consonant y with a default a, making the basic syllable ya. A vowel sign changes that vowel; a virama, a mark that removes it, lets the consonant join another consonant. Alone, the letter gives a sound, not a full translation.

Siddham grew out of Gupta writing in northern India. The Bodh-Gaya inscription of Mahanaman, dated around 588/89, is an early surviving example. Later forms shifted toward Nāgarī and eastern scripts; Śāradā is a closely related script.

Is Siddham ya a mantra?

No: alone, it writes a syllable, not a ritual text.

Siddham carried Sanskrit Buddhist writing across Asia. In China, it was studied as a way to record Sanskrit sounds and mantra clusters that Chinese characters did not represent well. By the ninth century, Sanskrit characters had entered Japanese esoteric Buddhist texts and ritual objects.

In Japanese esoteric Buddhism, Sanskrit letters called bonji can spell a syllable or stand for a Buddhist deity. One 𑖧 cannot identify a mantra or deity by itself; the surrounding text, image, or ritual object decides.