Vedic Tone Candra Above

It is a Vedic recitation mark attached to a syllable.

Grantha is a South Indian script used for Sanskrit. In Grantha-printed Yajurveda texts, the mark denotes svarita, a pitch movement in recitation; a 1980 printing of the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇam, a Yajurveda text, shows it. A 2005 Devanagari ritual booklet shows it too. In Kauthuma, a Sāmaveda recitation tradition, it marks śivaka udātta and dīpta śruti, two named pitch cues; the Rāṇāyanīya Sāmaveda tradition uses it on syllables that are not lengthened. Its job depends on the tradition.

Why does ᳴ resemble candra below?

᳴ is a Vedic tone mark; similar signs have different jobs. ᳘ is another Vedic tone mark, placed below its base; its uses differ by tradition. Devanagari candra e, ॅ, is a vowel sign in the syllable’s spelling. The Devanagari svarita sign, ॑, is a related accent, but editions choose marks according to their own notation. Similar curves do not make these signs interchangeable.

How do I type ᳴?

Type the base syllable first, then append ᳴ directly after it. Unicode treats Vedic tone marks as combining marks placed after their base character. If the mark stands alone or lands on the wrong syllable, check the text sequence.

A font can change its appearance. In one Kannada Vedic publication in 2015, a font without this glyph showed a sans-serif Latin “u” instead. That was a fallback shape, not a separate sign. If ᳴ floats, disappears, or appears as a box, check for a font with Vedic combining-mark support.