Ancient characters

These characters were used in the North (Uttara), particularly in the area of Calcutta.

Only a few characters are different:

	la	jha	Ṇa	a	ā	o	au	ṛi	ṛī
Usual Devanagari characters	ल	झ	ण	अ	आ	ओ	औ	ऋ	ॠ
Uttara Devanagari characters	ल	झ	ण	अ	आ	ओ	औ	ऋ	ॠ

To use these characters, download & install the special font Siddhanta-Calcutta.

Note

Click on the virama, called halant in Sanskrit (diacritic in the center) to delete the inherent vowel a: the virama is needed between two consonants.

example: vedānta is written by clicking on the keys: va + e + da + ā + na + virama + ta

Instructions

To type directly with the computer keyboard:

• Use the capital to type the letters subscribed with a dot below: T, Th, D, Dh, N, L, S
• Type G or ng for ṅ & J for ñ
• Type z or ç or sh for ś
• Type aa, ii, uu (or A, I, U) for the long vowels ā, ī, ū
• Type -r and -ri for ri and rī
• Type -l and -li for li and lī
• Type M for ं (anusvara) & MM for ँ (candra bindu)
• Type H for ः (visarga)
• Type = four ़ (nukta): dot below
• Type _ for ॒ (anudatta) and __ for ॑ (udatta)
• Type / or | for । (danda)
• Type ' (apostrophe) for ऽ (avagraha)
• Type O, OM (capitals) for ॐ
• Type x to form a half consonant; example: type sx for स्‍
• Type xx to prevent conjunct forms; example: type kxxS for क्‌ष्

Copy [Ctrl]+[C] & Paste [Ctrl]+[V]