Siddham, Siddhaṃ, Siddhamātṛkā
Script details
Section titled “Script details”See all script details: code, region, status and more
| Code | Sidd |
| Script type | abugida |
| Region | South Asian |
| Status | Historical |
| Direction | LTR |
| Baseline | hanging |
| Case | no |
| White space | unspecified |
| Complex behaviors | diacritics, required ligatures |
| OpenType code | sidd |
| ISO 15924 Number | 302 (alphasyllabic) |
Script description
Section titled “Script description”Siddham is an extinct Brahmic script which was used between 600-1200 AD for writing Sanskrit.
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The script originated in southern India but travelled along the silk road to China, Japan and Korea in the form of Buddhist tantra texts. An adaptation of the script is still used in some esoteric Buddhist schools in Japan, where it is called Bonji.
The script is an abugida. Each character indicates a syllable consisting either of an independent (that is, not preceded by a consonant) vowel, or of a consonant followed by the vowel /a/. Diacritic marks can be appended to consonant letters to indicate that a vowel other than /a/ follows. There is also a diacritic mark, the virama to indicate that a consonant stands alone, with no following vowel. Consonant clusters are usually written with special conjunct forms.
Languages that use this script
Section titled “Languages that use this script”| Language | Writing System Code | Writing System Status | SLDR/CLDR locale | Regional variants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classical Newari | nwc-Sidd | in use | nwc-Sidd-NP (Nepal) | |
| Sanskrit | sa-Sidd | in use | sa-Sidd-IN (India) |
Unicode status
Section titled “Unicode status”In The Unicode Standard, Siddham script implementation is discussed in Chapter 15: South and Central Asia-IV — Other Historic Scripts
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Resources
Section titled “Resources”- ScriptSource page for Siddham script - all about scripts, languages, and writing systems