Tradition · script tradition
Siddhaṃ script
A Gupta-derived Brahmi script used in India between about the sixth and twelfth centuries for Sanskrit Buddhist texts, carried to China and from there to Japan, where Shingon and Tendai monks have kept it in ritual use to the present.
- Function
- Text & inscription
- Confidence
- Not assessed
Worth knowing
It died out in India and lives in Japan, where the syllables are written as an act of practice rather than read as language — the shape of the letter is the mantra. Kūkai learned it at Chang'an in 804 and brought it to Mount Kōya.
Connections (1)
- TransmissionMount Kōya
Siddham is a Gupta-derived Brahmi script that India used for Sanskrit Buddhist texts between roughly the sixth and twelfth centuries and then abandoned. Kūkai learned it at Chang'an in 804 and carried it to Mount Kōya, where Shingon monks still write its syllables as a ritual act — the shape of the letter is the mantra, and the practitioner need not read Sanskrit as a language. A dead Indian script is in daily use on a Japanese mountain.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Siddhaṃ script”. Kūkai’s Shōrai mokuroku; Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy (1998), on the Gupta and Siddhamātṛkā scripts.
Open Siddhaṃ script in the repository →