Siddhaṃ alphabet

For the 2009 film, see Siddham (film).

"Bonji" redirects here. For places in Iran, see Bunji.

Siddhaṃ
The word Siddhaṃ in the Siddhaṃ script
Type	Abugida
Languages	Sanskrit
Time period	c. 600–c. 1200 in India, and to the present in East Asia
Parent systems	(Aramaic alphabet [a]) Brāhmī Gupta Siddhaṃ
Child systems	Assamese script, Bengali script, Tibetan and its descendants
Sister systems	Nāgarī Śāradā
[a] The Semitic origin of the Brahmic scripts is not universally agreed upon. Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

Siddhaṃ (Sanskrit सिद्धं, "accomplished" or "perfected"; སིད་དྷཾ།; Chinese: 悉曇文字; pinyin: Xītán wénzi; Japanese: 梵字, bonji; Middle Chinese (Baxter-Sagart): sit-dom mjun-dziH), also known in its later evolved form as Siddhamātṛkā, is the name of a North Indian script used for writing Sanskrit during the period ca 600-1200 CE. It is descended from the Brahmi script via the Gupta script, which also gave rise to the Devanāgarī script as well as a number of other Asian scripts such as Tibetan script. There is some confusion over the spelling: Siddhāṃ and Siddhaṃ are both common, though Siddhaṃ is correct. The script is a refinement of the script used during the Indian Gupta Empire. The name arose from the practice of writing the word Siddhaṃ, or Siddhaṃ astu (may there be perfection) at the head of documents.

Siddhaṃ is an abugida or alphasyllabary rather than an alphabet because each character indicates a syllable, but it does not include every possible syllable. If no other mark occurs then the short 'a' is assumed. Diacritic marks indicate the other vowels, the pure nasal (anusvāra), and the aspirated vowel (visarga). A special mark (virama) can be used to indicate that the letter stands alone with no vowel, which sometimes happens at the end of Sanskrit words. See links below for examples.

History

Siddhaṃ manuscript of the Heart Sūtra. Bibliothèque nationale de France

An early Siddham manuscript, dated to the first half of the 6th century (the so-called "Horiuzi Palm-leaf MSS" preserved in Hōryū-ji monastery, Japan). It contains the Sanskrit text of the Heart Sūtra and the Uṣṇīṣa Vijaya Dhāraṇī. The final line is a Siddhaṃ alphasyllabary.

Chinese use of the Siddhaṃ script for the Pratisara Mantra, from the Later Tang Dynasty. 927 CE

Many of the Buddhist texts which were taken to China along the Silk Road were written using a version of the Siddhaṃ script. This continued to evolve, and minor variations are seen across time, and in different regions. Importantly it was used for transmitting the Buddhist tantra texts. At the time it was considered important to preserve the pronunciation of mantras, and Chinese was not suitable for writing the sounds of Sanskrit. This led to the retention of the Siddhaṃ Script in East Asia. The practice of writing using Siddhaṃ survived in East Asia where Tantric Buddhism persisted.

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. By the time Kūkai learned this script, the trading and pilgrimage routes over land to India, were closed by the expanding Islamic empire of the Abbasids.

In Japan the writing of mantras and copying of Sutras using the Siddhaṃ script is still practiced in the esoteric Buddhist schools of Shingon and Tendai as well as in the syncretic sect of Shugendō. The characters are known as shittan (悉曇) or bonji (梵字, Chinese: Fánzi). The Taisho edition of the Chinese Tripiṭaka preserves the Siddhaṃ characters for most mantras, and Korean Buddhists still write seed syllables in a modified form of Siddhaṃ. A recent innovation is the writing of Japanese language slogans on T-shirts using Bonji. Japanese Siddhaṃ has evolved from the original script used to write sūtras and is now somewhat different from the ancient script.

It is more typical to see Siddhaṃ written with brushes like Chinese writing, and is also written with a bamboo pen; in Japan, a special brush called a bokuhitsu (朴筆, Chinese: Bóbǐ) is used for formal Siddhaṃ calligraphy.

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. In time, other scripts, particularly Devanagari, replaced Siddhaṃ in India, leaving East Asia as the only region where Siddhaṃ is used.

Alphabet

Vowels

Independent form	Romanized	As diacritic with	Independent form	Romanized	As diacritic with
	a			ā
	i			ī
	u			ū
	e			ai
	o			au
	aṃ			aḥ

Independent form	Romanized	As diacritic with	Independent form	Romanized	As diacritic with
	ṛ			ṝ
	ḷ			ḹ

Alternative forms

ā

i

i

ī

ī

u

ū

o

au

aṃ

Consonants

	Stop					Approximant	Fricative
	Tenuis	Aspirated	Voiced	Breathy voiced	Nasal
Glottal							h
Velar	k	kh	g	gh	ṅ
Palatal	c	ch	j	jh	ñ	y	ś
Retroflex	ṭ	ṭh	ḍ	ḍh	ṇ	r	ṣ
Dental	t	th	d	dh	n	l	s
Bilabial	p	ph	b	bh	m
Labiodental						v

Conjuncts in alphabet

kṣ

llaṃ

Alternative forms

ch

j

ñ

ṭ

ṭh

ḍh

ḍh

ṇ

ṇ

th

th

dh

n

m

ś

ś

v

Conjuncts

Siddhaṃ alphabet by Kūkai(774–835)

k$\cdots$kṣ	-ya	-ra	-la	-va	-ma	-na
k	kya	kra	kla	kva	kma	kna
rk	rkya	rkra	rkla	rkva	rkma	rkna
kh	$\cdots$
$\vdots$    total 68 rows.

• ↑ The combinations that contain adjoining duplicate letters should be deleted in this table。

ṅka	ṅkha	ṅga	ṅgha
ñca	ñcha	ñja	ñjha
ṇṭa	ṇṭha	ṇḍa	ṇḍha
nta	ntha	nda	ndha
mpa	mpha	mba	mbha

ṅya	ṅra	ṅla	ṅva
ṅśa	ṅṣa	ṅsa	ṅha	ṅkṣa

ska	skha	dga	dgha	ṅktra
vca/bca	vcha/bcha	vja/bja	vjha/bjha	jña
ṣṭa	ṣṭha	dḍa	dḍha	ṣṇa
sta	stha	vda/bda	vdha/bdha	rtsna
spa	spha	dba	dbha	rkṣma

rkṣvya	rkṣvrya	lta	tkva
ṭśa	ṭṣa	sha	bkṣa

pta

ṭka

dsva

ṭṣchra

jja

ṭṭa

ṇṇa

tta

nna

mma

lla

vva

$\cdots$

Alternative forms of conjuncts that contain ṇ.

ṇṭa

ṇṭha

ṇḍa

ṇḍha

ṛ syllables

kṛ

khṛ

gṛ

ghṛ

ṅṛ

cṛ

chṛ

jṛ

jhṛ

ñṛ

$\cdots$

Some sample syllables

rka	rkā	rki	rkī	rku	rkū	rke	rkai	rko	rkau	rkaṃ	rkaḥ
ṅka	ṅkā	ṅki	ṅkī	ṅku	ṅkū	ṅke	ṅkai	ṅko	ṅkau	ṅkaṃ	ṅkaḥ

Siddhaṃ Fonts

Siddhaṃ is still largely a hand written script. Some efforts have been made to create computer fonts though to date none of these are capable of reproducing all of the Siddhaṃ conjunct consonants. Notably the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Texts Association have created a Siddhaṃ font for their electronic version of the Taisho Tripiṭaka, though this does not contain all possible conjuncts. The software Mojikyo also contains fonts for Siddham, but split Siddham in different blocks and needs different fonts to render one document.

A siddhaṃ input system relies on the CBETA font, Siddhamkey 3.0 has been produced.

Unicode

Siddhaṃ is not yet encoded in the Unicode standard. A proposal to encode the script has been developed by Anshuman Pandey and submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee. The script block is tentatively allocated to the range U+11580-115FF, as showed in the SMP Roadmap.

External links

• Siddham alphabet on Omniglot
• Examples of Siddham mantras Chinese language website.
• Visible Mantra an extensive collection of mantras and some sūtras in Siddhaṃ script
• Bonji Siddham Character and Pronunciation
• SiddhamKey Software for inputting Siddham characters

Sources

• Bonji Taikan (梵字大鑑). (Tōkyō: Meicho Fukyūkai, 1983)
• Stevens, John. Sacred Calligraphy of the East. (Boston: Shambala, 1995).
• Van Gulik, R.H. Siddham : An Essay on the History of Sanskrit Studies in China and Japan (New Delhi, Jayyed Press, 1981).
• YAMASAKI, Taikō. Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism. (Fresno: Shingon Buddhist International Institute, 1988).