Tangut character 17AD3

Its Tangut gloss is “to play.”

Tangut was the language of the medieval Western Xia state. Its script was created in 1036 under ruler Li Yuanhao, who tasked official Yeli Renrong with developing it. The goals included establishing a distinct state identity and creating a Tangut Buddhist canon—a collection of Buddhist scriptures. The script drew visual and structural ideas from Chinese writing and the neighboring Khitan people's scripts, but it did not derive from Chinese. Tangut writing carried Buddhist works and translations of Chinese books. After Western Xia fell in 1227, Tangut writing continued, especially in Buddhist settings; the latest known examples are Buddhist pillars dated 1502.