Talk:Siddhaṃ alphabet

Siddhaṃ (r)astu

According to the article, "the name arose from the practice of writing the word Siddhaṃ, or Siddhaṃ rastu (may there be perfection) at the head of documents." If it's in Sanskrit, then shouldn't it rather be Siddhamastu?--Uanfala (talk) 18:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

This is a very interesting comment/question. Because the meaning clearly comes from astu 3rd person singular imperative of √as 'to be'. Whence then rastu? The story of "siddhāṃrastu" appears in John Steven's book Sacred Calligraphy (p. 33) where he also spells the script as siddhāṃ (with an incorrect long 'a'). The long 'a' is clearly a corruption, probably introduced by the Chinese. I haven't seen anything other than siddhaṃ on actual manuscripts. I'll keep an eye out for more info mahaabaala (talk) 20:22, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Siddhaṃ

I note that someone has replaced the earlier image of the word siddhaṃ in the Siddhaṃ script. It now says siddhāṃ which is a spelling mistake. The word is siddhaṃ - short 'a'. mahaabaala (talk) 18:47, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

• the earlier image is . is it siddhaṃ? Mhss (talk) 03:32, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

yes Mhss. That is Siddhaṃ. I note now that the image has again been replaced, this time with some of the ugliest Siddhaṃ I've ever seen. mahaabaala (talk) 15:39, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I've replaced the ugly one with the one above. Tengu800 (talk) 16:46, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Taisho

Is it worth mentioning that the Siddhaṃ mantras in the Taisho canon are often corrupt? Perhaps more often than not. mahaabaala (talk) 20:27, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Image

The image of the palm leaf manuscript on this page is the Heart Sūtra - or at least the first page and the first line of the last page. The rest of the text is the Uṣniṣavijaya Dhāraṇī. While the last line contains a complete siddhaṃ syllabary beginning with the word 'siddhaṃ'.

I wonder if anyone else has spotted this? I'd love to get a high resolution copy! mahaabaala (talk) 09:32, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Question

This character is claimed to be a Siddham character, but I can't identify it. It appears here, where it says it is pronounced in Japanese as "Un". Can anyone identify this character? If you can, please message me here. Thanks!208.249.136.187 (talk) 01:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Yes this is hūṃ - there are two ways of writing the ū diacritic. See my hūṃ page for another example. And yes in Japan it is pronounced as Un. See for instance Hakeda, Y. Kūkai: Major Works (Ungi gi: 'The meanings of the Word hūṃ'; p.246ff); see also Stevens, John. Sacred Calligraphy of the East, p.58. mahaabaala (talk) 15:39, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Grazie.24.13.125.86 (talk) 19:07, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Conjuncts?

It would be nice if someone wrote a bit of text to clarify the conjuncts section, which is so far just a set of tables without context. I can glean that conjuncts are the equivalent of Latin ligatures, but it probably wouldn't hurt to write a paragraph or two about the kinds of conjuncts are possible, and how that complicates the computer rendering of the font... --Wtrmute (talk) 15:52, 26 September 2011 (UTC)