What 𑿛 means
It marks a traditional Tamil grain measure.
Two kuruni—each also called a marakkal—make one pathakku; two pathakku make one tuni. The sign marks grain volume, not a Tamil letter or sound.
An early Pandya inscription links patakku to paddy allotted per irrigated field. A Tanjavur temple inscription lists padakku for festival provisions in Rājarāja I’s 29th regnal year.
why does the pathakku sign look different?
Older references preserve more than one Pathakku form.
In 2016, a Tamil Nadu review deferred an earlier proposal because experts found the sign’s source lineage complex and noted variant shapes. That review explains why historical references can disagree about the glyph.
Historical Tamil metrology: a grain measure found in field-allocation and temple records, not an alphabetic letter.
Kuruni is half a pathakku; the two names are not interchangeable.
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Questions people ask
1Why does 𑿛 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
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How to type or find 𑿛
- Also called
- padakku · patakku · paṭakku
- Search it as
- pathakku · kuruni · marakkal · Tamil grain measure sign · pathakku sign
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𑿛\11FDBCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.