Tangut character 183FA

It is the Tangut verb for “trample,” “step on,” or “tread.” A Tangut–Chinese dictionary by Li Fanwen lists it as a verb and gives its scholarly reading as tar¹.

Li Yuanhao, ruler of Western Xia (Xixia), commissioned the Tangut script in 1036 for state-building and a Tangut edition of the Buddhist canon, a collection of Buddhist sacred texts. The Tanguts followed their neighbors, the Khitan, who had made two scripts about a century earlier. Tangut writing took visual cues from Chinese but was not derived from Chinese; 𘏺 writes Tangut, not Chinese.

Khara-Khoto is a ruined settlement in Inner Mongolia where a large library of Tangut and Chinese books was found. One manuscript from its ruins is undated and probably comes from the 12th or early 13th century. Surviving Tangut books include Buddhist scriptures, Confucian classics, encyclopedias, military treatises, and literature, translated from Chinese or Tibetan or composed in Tangut.