Tangut character 𗯸

The surrounding passage decides whether it means a word or spells a sound.

Li Fanwen’s Tangut dictionary index associates 𗯸’s lexical use with Chinese 智, “wisdom” or “intelligence,” and records the Tangut reading tsow, a scholarly reconstruction of its old pronunciation.

A study published in 2025 records a Buddhist passage that uses 𗯸, with the Tangut reading pã¹, to spell Sanskrit paṃ, a syllable ending in a nasal sound. There it takes the place of 𗴟, read pja¹. The study leaves the reason for this choice uncertain.

Where does 𗯸 come from?

It belongs to the Tangut writing system, made for the Tangut language.

A Tangut dictionary called the Sea of Writing, organized by rhyme—that is, by patterns in word endings—lists 𗯸 at entry 30.252. The work dates to the 12th century. Its entry shows the character existed by then, but not when it was created. Unicode encoded it in 2016; that date marks its entry into a computer standard, not its origin.

Tangut writing appears in dictionaries, literature, and Buddhist translations. In this Buddhist passage, a Tangut character represents a Sanskrit sound: a specific choice made in translation.