bengali alphabet how to write siddham alphabet how to write

Siddhaṃ texts were usually written from left to right then top to bottom, as with other Brahmic scripts, but occasionally they were written in the traditional Chinese style, from top to bottom then right to left. A virama can be used to indicate that the consonant letter stands alone with no vowel, which sometimes happens at the end of Sanskrit words. Diacritic marks are used to indicate other vowels, as well as the anusvara and visarga.

If the vowel sound is not explicitly indicated, the short 'a' is assumed. Siddhaṃ is an abugida rather than an alphabet, as each character indicates a syllable, including a consonant and (possibly) a vowel. This led to multiple variants of the same characters. This practice, in effect, represents a 'blend' of the Chinese style of writing and the Indian style of writing and allows Sanskrit texts in Siddhaṃ to be differentially interpreted as they are read, as was done with Chinese characters that the Japanese had adopted. There were special forms of Siddhaṃ used in Korea that varied significantly from those used in China and Japan, and there is evidence that Siddhaṃ was written in Central Asia, as well, by the early 7th century.Īs was done with Chinese characters, Japanese Buddhist scholars sometimes created multiple characters with the same phonological value to add meaning to Siddhaṃ characters. In time, other scripts, particularly Devanagari, replaced Siddhaṃ in India, while Siddhaṃ's northeastern derivative called Gaudi evolved to become the Assamese, Bengali, Tirhuta, Odia and also the Nepalese scripts in the eastern and northeastern regions of South Asia, leaving East Asia as the only region where Siddhaṃ is still used. In the middle of the 9th century, China experienced a series of purges of 'foreign religions', thus cutting Japan off from the sources of Siddhaṃ texts. By the time Kūkai learned this script, the trading and pilgrimage routes over land to India had been closed by the expanding Abbasid Caliphate. Kūkai introduced the Siddhaṃ script to Japan when he returned from China in 806, where he studied Sanskrit with Nalanda-trained monks including one known as Prajñā ( Chinese: 般若三藏 pinyin: Bōrě Sāncáng 734– c. The practice of writing using Siddhaṃ survived in East Asia where Tantric Buddhism persisted.

This led to the retention of the Siddhaṃ script in East Asia.

At the time it was considered important to preserve the pronunciation of mantras, and Chinese was not suitable for writing the sounds of Sanskrit. Importantly, it was used for transmitting the Buddhist tantra texts. This continued to evolve, and minor variations are seen across time, and in different regions. Many Buddhist texts taken to China along the Silk Road were written using a version of the Siddhaṃ script. The Siddham script evolved from the Gupta Brahmi script in the late 6th century CE.

Bengali alphabet how to write siddham alphabet how to write