Ḍha
Example glyphs
Bengali-Assamese
Thai	ฒ
Malayalam	ഢ
Sinhala	ඪ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ד
Greek	Δ
Latin	D
Cyrillic	Д
Properties
Phonemic representation	/ɖʱ/ /tʰ/B
IAST transliteration	ḍ Ḍ
ISCII code point	C0 (192)
^B in Tai languages, Khmer and Mon

Ḍha (also romanized as Ddha) is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Ḍha is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . As with the other cerebral consonants, ḍha is not found in most scripts for Tai, Sino-Tibetan, and other non-Indic languages, except for a few scripts, which retain these letters for transcribing Sanskrit religious terms.

Āryabhaṭa numeration

Aryabhata used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the Greek numerals, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The values of the different forms of ढ are:^[1]

• ढ [ɖʰə] = 14 (१४)
• ढि [ɖʰɪ] = 1,400 (१ ४००)
• ढु [ɖʰʊ] = 140,000 (१ ४० ०००)
• ढृ [ɖʰri] = 14,000,000 (१ ४० ०० ०००)
• ढॢ [ɖʰlə] = 1,400,000,000 (१ ४० ०० ०० ०००)
• ढे [ɖʰe] = 14×10¹⁰ (१४×१०^१०)
• ढै [ɖʰɛː] = 14×10¹² (१४×१०^१२)
• ढो [ɖʰoː] = 14×10¹⁴ (१४×१०^१४)
• ढौ [ɖʰɔː] = 14×10¹⁶ (१४×१०^१६)

Historic Ḍha

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. Ḍha as found in standard Brahmi, was a simple geometric shape, with variations toward more flowing forms by the Gupta . The Tocharian Ḍha did not have an alternate Fremdzeichen form. The third form of ḍha, in Kharoshthi () was probably derived from Aramaic separately from the Brahmi letter.

Brahmi Ḍha

The Brahmi letter , Ḍha, is probably derived from the altered Aramaic Dalet , and is thus related to the modern Latin D and Greek Delta.^[2] Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi Ḍha can be found, most associated with a specific set of inscriptions from an artifact or diverse records from an historic period.^[3] As the earliest and most geometric style of Brahmi, the letters found on the Edicts of Ashoka and other records from around that time are normally the reference form for Brahmi letters, with vowel marks not attested until later forms of Brahmi back-formed to match the geometric writing style.

Brahmi Ḍha historic forms

Ashoka (3rd-1st c. BCE)	Girnar (~150 BCE)	Kushana (~150-250 CE)	Gujarat (~250 CE)	Gupta (~350 CE)

Tocharian Ḍha

The Tocharian letter is derived from the Brahmi , but does not have an alternate Fremdzeichen form.

Tocharian Ḍha with vowel marks

Ḍha	Ḍhā	Ḍhi	Ḍhī	Ḍhu	Ḍhū	Ḍhr	Ḍhr̄	Ḍhe	Ḍhai	Ḍho	Ḍhau	Ḍhä

Devanagari Ḍha

Devanāgarī
Abugida Brahmic scripts Inherent vowel
Languages Hindi Marathi Nepali Konkani Maithili Sindhi Bodo Pali Prakrit Sanskrit and more
Transliteration IAST Hunterian NLK ISO 15919 Harvard-Kyoto ITRANS Velthuis SLP1 WX notation (ISCII)
Vowels and syllabic consonants अ a ॲ æ ऄ आ (का) ā इ (कि) i ई (की) ī उ (कु) u ऊ (कू) ū ॶ (कॖ) ॷ (कॗ) ऋ (कृ) r̥ ॠ (कॄ) r̥̄ ऌ (कॢ) l̥ ॡ (कॣ) l̥̄ ए (के) ē ऍ (कॅ) ê ऎ (कॆ) e ऐ (कै) ai (कॕ) (कॎ) ओ (को) ō ऑ (कॉ) ô ऒ (कॊ) o औ (कौ) au ॳ (कऺ) ॴ (कऻ) ॵ (कॏ) (Schwa deletion)
Consonants क k क़ q ख kh ख़ k̲h̲ ग g ग़ ġ ॻ gg घ gh ङ ṅ च c छ ch ज j ज़ z ॼ jj ॹ ž झ jh झ़ zh ञ ñ ट ṭ ठ ṭh ड ḍ ड़ ṛ ॾ ḍḍ ॸ ḍ ढ ḍh ढ़ ṛh ण ṇ त t थ th द d ध dh न n ऩ ṉ प p फ ph फ़ f ब b ॿ bb भ bh म m य y य़ ẏ ॺ र r ऱ ṟ ळ ḷ ऴ ḻ ल l व v श ś ष ṣ स s ह h ॽ (Conjuncts)
Diacritics, punctuation, symbols अं ṁ अः ḥ अँ m̐ अऀ ऽ ’ क़ क् ३ 3 ᳵ ẖ ᳶ ḫ अ॑ ` अ॒ _ अ॓ अ॔ ॐ aum̐ । ॥ ॰ ॱ ₹ INR and more (Devanagari (Unicode block) Devanagari Extended Devanagari Extended-A Vedic Extensions)
Numerals ० 0 १ 1 २ 2 ३ 3 ४ 4 ५ 5 ६ 6 ७ 7 ८ 8 ९ 9 Āryabhaṭa Akṣarapallī Bhūtasaṃkhyā Kaṭapayādi

Ḍha (ढ) is a consonant of the Devanagari abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , after having gone through the Gupta letter . Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter ઢ, and the Modi letter 𑘛.

Bengali Ḍha

The Bengali script ঢ is derived from the Siddhaṃ , and is marked by a similar horizontal head line, but less geometric shape, than its Devanagari counterpart, ढ. The inherent vowel of Bengali consonant letters is /ɔ/, so the bare letter ঢ will sometimes be transliterated as "ḍho" instead of "ḍha". Adding okar, the "o" vowel mark, gives a reading of /d̳ʱo/. Like all Indic consonants, ঢ can be modified by marks to indicate another (or no) vowel than its inherent "a".

Gujarati Ḍha

Gujarati Ḍha.

Ḍha (ઢ) is the fourteenth consonant of the Gujarati abugida. It is derived from the Devanagari Ḍha with the top bar (shiro rekha) removed, and ultimately the Brahmi letter .

Gujarati-using Languages

The Gujarati script is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. In both languages, ઢ is pronounced as [ɖʱə] or [ɖʱ] when appropriate. Like all Indic scripts, Gujarati uses vowel marks attached to the base consonant to override the inherent /ə/ vowel:

Ḍha	Ḍhā	Ḍhi	Ḍhī	Ḍhu	Ḍhū	Ḍhr	Ḍhl	Ḍhr̄	Ḍhl̄	Ḍhĕ	Ḍhe	Ḍhai	Ḍhŏ	Ḍho	Ḍhau	Ḍh
Gujarati Ḍha syllables, with vowel marks in red.

Javanese Ḍha

Telugu Ḍha

Telugu independent and subjoined Ḍha.

Ḍha (ఢ) is a consonant of the Telugu abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter . It is closely related to the Kannada letter ಢ. Most Telugu consonants contain a v-shaped headstroke that is related to the horizontal headline found in other Indic scripts, although headstrokes do not connect adjacent letters in Telugu. The headstroke is normally lost when adding vowel matras. Telugu conjuncts are created by reducing trailing letters to a subjoined form that appears below the initial consonant of the conjunct. Many subjoined forms are created by dropping their headline, with many extending the end of the stroke of the main letter body to form an extended tail reaching up to the right of the preceding consonant. This subjoining of trailing letters to create conjuncts is in contrast to the leading half forms of Devanagari and Bengali letters. Ligature conjuncts are not a feature in Telugu, with the only non-standard construction being an alternate subjoined form of Ṣa (borrowed from Kannada) in the KṢa conjunct.

Malayalam Ḍha

Malayalam letter Ḍha

Ḍha (ഢ) is a consonant of the Malayalam abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Grantha letter Ḍha. Like in other Indic scripts, Malayalam consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel or no vowel at all.

Malayalam Ḍha matras: Ḍha, Ḍhā, Ḍhi, Ḍhī, Ḍhu, Ḍhū, Ḍhr̥, Ḍhr̥̄, Ḍhl̥, Ḍhl̥̄, Ḍhe, Ḍhē, Ḍhai, Ḍho, Ḍhō, Ḍhau, and Ḍh.

Odia Ḍha

Odia independent and subjoined letter Ḍha.

Ḍha (ଢ) is a consonant of the Odia abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter Ḍha. Like in other Indic scripts, Odia consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel or no vowel at all.

As is common in Indic scripts, Odia joins letters together to form conjunct consonant clusters. The most common conjunct formation is achieved by using a small subjoined form of trailing consonants. Most consonants' subjoined forms are identical to the full form, just reduced in size, although a few drop the curved headline or have a subjoined form not directly related to the full form of the consonant. The second type of conjunct formation is through pure ligatures, where the constituent consonants are written together in a single graphic form. ଢ generates conjuncts only by subjoining and does not form ligatures.

Tibetan

Tibetan letter Ḍha and its component characters Ḍa and Ha.

Ḍha is a consonant of the Tibetan abugida. Tibetan Ḍha is not genealogically related to Ḍha in other Indic scripts, but is rather a "compound" letter composed from Ḍa + Ha. As a cerebral consonant, it is not used for writing native Tibetan words, but can be found in terms borrowed from Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages.

Kaithi Ḍha

Kaithi consonant Ḍha.

Ḍha (𑂛) is a consonant of the Kaithi abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter Ḍha. Like in other Indic scripts, Kaithi consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel or no vowel at all.

Kaithi Ṛha

Kaithi consonant Ṛha.

Ṛha (𑂜) is a consonant of the Kaithi abugida and is derived from the Kaithi 𑂛 Ḍha.

Kaithi Rha with vowel matras

Rha	Rhā	Rhi	Rhī	Rhu	Rhū	Rhe	Rhai	Rho	Rhau	Rh
𑂛	𑂛𑂰	𑂛𑂱	𑂛𑂲	𑂛𑂳	𑂛𑂴	𑂛𑂵	𑂛𑂶	𑂛𑂷	𑂛𑂸	𑂛𑂹

Conjuncts of

As is common in Indic scripts, Kaithi joins letters together to form conjunct consonant clusters. The most common conjunct formation is achieved by using a half form of preceding consonants, although several consonants use an explicit virama. Most half forms are derived from the full form by removing the vertical stem. As is common in most Indic scripts, conjucts of ra are indicated with a repha or rakar mark attached to the rest of the consonant cluster. In addition, there are a few vertical conjuncts that can be found in Kaithi writing, but true ligatures are not used in the modern Kaithi script.

• 𑂩୍ (r) + (ṛʱa) gives the ligature rṛʱa:

Comparison of Ḍha

The various Indic scripts are generally related to each other through adaptation and borrowing, and as such the glyphs for cognate letters, including Ḍha, are related as well.

Comparison of Ḍha in different scripts

Aramaic Kharoṣṭhī 𐨝 Ashoka Brahmi Kushana Brahmi[lower-alpha 1] Tocharian[lower-alpha 2] Gupta Brahmi Pallava Kadamba - Bhaiksuki 𑰛 Siddhaṃ Grantha 𑌢 Cham - Sinhala ඪ Pyu / Old Mon[lower-alpha 3] - Tibetan - Newa 𑐝 Ahom - Malayalam ഢ Telugu ఢ Burmese ဎ Lepcha - Ranjana Saurashtra ꢟ Dives Akuru 𑤙 Kannada ಢ Kayah Li - Limbu - Soyombo[lower-alpha 4] 𑩩 Khmer ឍ Tamil - Chakma 𑄙 Tai Tham ᨰ Meitei Mayek - Gaudi - Thai ฒ Lao ຒ Tai Le - Marchen - Tirhuta 𑒜 New Tai Lue - Tai Viet - Aksara Kawi 'Phags-pa - Odia ଢ Sharada 𑆞 Rejang - Batak - Buginese - Zanabazar Square 𑨗 Bengali-Assamese Takri 𑚗 Javanese ꦞ Balinese ᬠ Makasar - Hangul[lower-alpha 5] - Northern Nagari - Dogri 𑠗 Laṇḍā - Sundanese - Baybayin - Modi 𑘛 Gujarati ઢ Khojki 𑈗 Khudabadi 𑋋 Mahajani 𑅡 Tagbanwa - Devanagari Nandinagari 𑦻 Kaithi Gurmukhi ਢ Multani 𑊔 Buhid - Canadian Syllabics[lower-alpha 6] - Soyombo[lower-alpha 7] 𑩩 Sylheti Nagari ꠓ Gunjala Gondi 𑶃 Masaram Gondi[lower-alpha 8] 𑴙 Hanuno'o - Notes ↑ The middle "Kushana" form of Brahmi is a later style that emerged as Brahmi scripts were beginning to proliferate. Gupta Brahmi was definitely a stylistic descendant from Kushana, but other Brahmi-derived scripts may have descended from earlier forms. ↑ Tocharian is probably derived from the middle period "Kushana" form of Brahmi, although artifacts from that time are not plentiful enough to establish a definite succession. ↑ Pyu and Old Mon are probably the precursors of the Burmese script, and may be derived from either the Pallava or Kadamba script ↑ May also be derived from Devangari (see bottom left of table) ↑ The Origin of Hangul from 'Phags-pa is one of limited influence, inspiring at most a few basic letter shapes. Hangul does not function as an Indic abugida. ↑ Although the basic letter forms of the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics were derived from handwritten Devanagari letters, this abugida indicates vowel sounds by rotations of the letter form, rather than the use of vowel diacritics as is standard in Indic abugidas. ↑ May also be derived from Ranjana (see above) ↑ Masaram Gondi acts as an Indic abugida, but its letterforms were not derived from any single precursor script.

Character encodings of Ḍha

Most Indic scripts are encoded in the Unicode Standard, and as such the letter Ḍha in those scripts can be represented in plain text with unique codepoint. Ḍha from several modern-use scripts can also be found in legacy encodings, such as ISCII.

Character information

Preview					ఢ		ଢ		ಢ		ഢ		ઢ		ਢ
Unicode name	DEVANAGARI LETTER DDHA		BENGALI LETTER DDHA		TELUGU LETTER DDHA		ORIYA LETTER DDHA		KANNADA LETTER DDHA		MALAYALAM LETTER DDHA		GUJARATI LETTER DDHA		GURMUKHI LETTER DDHA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	2338	U+0922	2466	U+09A2	3106	U+0C22	2850	U+0B22	3234	U+0CA2	3362	U+0D22	2722	U+0AA2	2594	U+0A22
UTF-8	224 164 162	E0 A4 A2	224 166 162	E0 A6 A2	224 176 162	E0 B0 A2	224 172 162	E0 AC A2	224 178 162	E0 B2 A2	224 180 162	E0 B4 A2	224 170 162	E0 AA A2	224 168 162	E0 A8 A2
Numeric character reference	ढ	ढ	ঢ	ঢ	ఢ	ఢ	ଢ	ଢ	ಢ	ಢ	ഢ	ഢ	ઢ	ઢ	ਢ	ਢ
ISCII	192	C0	192	C0	192	C0	192	C0	192	C0	192	C0	192	C0	192	C0

Character information

Preview	Ashoka Kushana Gupta		𐨝				𑌢
Unicode name	BRAHMI LETTER DDHA		KHAROSHTHI LETTER DDHA		SIDDHAM LETTER DDHA		GRANTHA LETTER DDHA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	69664	U+11020	68125	U+10A1D	71067	U+1159B	70434	U+11322
UTF-8	240 145 128 160	F0 91 80 A0	240 144 168 157	F0 90 A8 9D	240 145 150 155	F0 91 96 9B	240 145 140 162	F0 91 8C A2
UTF-16	55300 56352	D804 DC20	55298 56861	D802 DE1D	55301 56731	D805 DD9B	55300 57122	D804 DF22
Numeric character reference	𑀠	𑀠	𐨝	𐨝	𑖛	𑖛	𑌢	𑌢

Character information

Preview			ྜྷ		𑨗		𑐝		𑰛		𑆞
Unicode name	TIBETAN LETTER DDHA		TIBETAN SUBJOINED LETTER DDHA		ZANABAZAR SQUARE LETTER DDHA		NEWA LETTER DDHA		BHAIKSUKI LETTER DDHA		SHARADA LETTER DDHA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	3917	U+0F4D	3997	U+0F9D	72215	U+11A17	70685	U+1141D	72731	U+11C1B	70046	U+1119E
UTF-8	224 189 141	E0 BD 8D	224 190 157	E0 BE 9D	240 145 168 151	F0 91 A8 97	240 145 144 157	F0 91 90 9D	240 145 176 155	F0 91 B0 9B	240 145 134 158	F0 91 86 9E
UTF-16	3917	0F4D	3997	0F9D	55302 56855	D806 DE17	55301 56349	D805 DC1D	55303 56347	D807 DC1B	55300 56734	D804 DD9E
Numeric character reference	ཌྷ	ཌྷ	ྜྷ	ྜྷ	𑨗	𑨗	𑐝	𑐝	𑰛	𑰛	𑆞	𑆞

Character information

Preview	𑘛		𑦻		𑩩		ꠓ		𑶃
Unicode name	MODI LETTER DDHA		NANDINAGARI LETTER DDHA		SOYOMBO LETTER DDHA		SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER DDHO		GUNJALA GONDI LETTER DDHA		KAITHI LETTER DDHA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	71195	U+1161B	72123	U+119BB	72297	U+11A69	43027	U+A813	73091	U+11D83	69787	U+1109B
UTF-8	240 145 152 155	F0 91 98 9B	240 145 166 187	F0 91 A6 BB	240 145 169 169	F0 91 A9 A9	234 160 147	EA A0 93	240 145 182 131	F0 91 B6 83	240 145 130 155	F0 91 82 9B
UTF-16	55301 56859	D805 DE1B	55302 56763	D806 DDBB	55302 56937	D806 DE69	43027	A813	55303 56707	D807 DD83	55300 56475	D804 DC9B
Numeric character reference	𑘛	𑘛	𑦻	𑦻	𑩩	𑩩	ꠓ	ꠓ	𑶃	𑶃	𑂛	𑂛

References

^note Conjuncts are identified by IAST transliteration, except aspirated consonants are indicated with a superscript "h" to distinguish from an unaspirated cononant + Ha, and the use of the IPA "ŋ" and "ʃ" instead of the less dinstinctive "ṅ" and "ś".