Śāradā script

Śāradā
Kashmiri Shaivaite manuscript (17th or 18th century)
Type	Abugida
Languages	Sanskrit
Time period	c. 800 CE–present (almost extinct)
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic alphabet[a] Phoenician alphabet[a] Aramaic alphabet[a] Brāhmī Gupta Śāradā
Child systems	Gurmukhī Takri Landa
Sister systems	Nāgarī Siddhaṃ
ISO 15924	Shrd, 319
Direction	Left-to-right
Unicode alias	Sharada
Unicode range	(v. 6.1.0 beta) U+11180..U+111DF
[a] The Semitic origin of the Brahmic scripts is not universally agreed upon. Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

The Śāradā, or Sharada, script (शारदा) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts, developed around the 8th century. It was used for writing Sanskrit and Kashmiri. The Gurmukhī script was developed from Śāradā. Originally more widespread, its use became later restricted to Kashmir, and it is now rarely used except by the Kashmiri Pandit community for ceremonial purposes. Śāradā is another name for Saraswati, the goddess of learning.

The Śāradā script was accepted for encoding in the Unicode standard, and is supported by the beta released version 6.1.0 in the range U+11180..U+111DF.

Alphabet

Vowels

a अ	i इ	u उ	ṛ ऋ	ḷ ऌ	e ए	o ओ
ā आ	ī ई	ū ऊ	ṝ ॠ		ai ऐ	au औ

aṃ अं

aḥ अः

Consonants

k क	kh ख	g ग	gh घ	ṅ ङ
c च	ch छ	j ज	jh झ	ñ ञ
ṭ ट	ṭh ठ	ḍ ड	ḍh ढ	ṇ ण
t त	th थ	d द	dh ध	n न
p प	ph फ	b ब	bh भ	m म
y य	r र	l ल	v व
ś श	ṣ ष	s स	h ह

See also

• Sharada Peeth in Kashmir

External links

• ancientscripts.com
• Prevalence of the Śāradā Script in Afghanistan
• Akṣara List of the Manuscript of Abhidharmadīpa , ca. the 11th Century, Collection of Sanskrit Mss. Formerly Preserved in the China Ethnic Library