Sanskrit text has been trascribed using the IAST convention. However, since IAST was not designed for the diplomatic transcription of primary sources, a number of additional characters are also used.
| character | unicode value | description | example | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | vertical bar [U+007C] | daṇḍa | arthaḥ | | അൎഥഃ । |
| || | two vertical bars [U+007C] | double daṇḍa | arthaḥ || | అర్థః ॥ |
| ¦ | broken bar [U+00A6] | line filler (i.e., a daṇḍa at the end of a line) | a¦rthaḥ | अ¦र्थः |
| _ | underscore [U+005F] | explicit hiatus | aṅ_ga, tita_u | अङ्ग, തിതഉ |
| ḻ | “l” with macron below [U+0331] | retroflex lateral approximant | ḻa | ळ, ള, ళ |
| ❈ | heavy sparkle [U+2748] | general puṣpikā sign | ❈ | ❈ |
| ॰ | abbreviation sign [U+0970] | abbreviation sign | ma॰ bhā॰ | മ॰ ഭാ॰ |
| Devanāgarī | ||||
| oṁ | “o”,“m” with combining dot above [U+0307] | oṃkāra sign | oṁ | ॐ |
| oḿ | “o”,“m” with acute accent [U+0301] | Jaina oṃkāra sign | oḿ | ꣽ |
| __ | two underscores [U+005F] | explicit half-letter | a<del>ṇ__</del>ṅga | अ |
| ê, ô, aî, aû | vowel with circumflex accent [U+0302] | pṛṣṭhamātrā vowels | kê kaû | कॎ कॎो |
| ¯ | macron [U+00AF] | empty śirorekha | śiro¯kha | शिरोꣻख |
| ꣸ | pushpika [U+A8F8] | Devanāgarī puṣpikā sign | ꣸ | ꣸ |
| Malayālam | ||||
| r | “r” | “r” in a consonantal cluster is rendered as a dot reph | artthaḥ | അൎത്ഥഃ |
| Telugu | ||||
| ṙ | “r” with combining dot above [U+0307] | valapalagilaka | aṙtthaḥ | అర్త్థః |
Some characters, which may be currently unrepresented in Unicode, can be displayed by means of font variants. These are currently encoded using the <g> tag.
| code | unicode value | OpenType feature | display |
|---|---|---|---|
| <g ref="#broken-danda"/> | devanagari danda [U+0964] | character variant 1 | । |
| <g ref="#danda-with-slash"/> | devanagari danda [U+0964] | character variant 2 | । |
| <g ref="#newa-gap-filler"/> | newa gap filler [U+01144E] | 𑑎 | |
| <g ref="#newa-placeholder-mark"/> | newa placeholder mark [U+1145B] | 𑑛 | |
| <g ref="#newa-old-gap-filler"/> | newa gap filler [U+01144E] | character variant 1 | |
| <g ref="#newa-comma"/> | newa comma [U+1144D] | 𑑍 | |
| <g ref="#newa-double-comma"/> | newa double comma [U+1145A] | 𑑚 | |
| <g ref="#newa-siddhi"/> | newa siddhi [U+1144A] | 𑑊 | |
| <g ref="#sharada-sign-siddham"/> | sharada sign siddham [U+111DB] | 𑇛 | |
| <g ref="#sharada-section-mark-1"/> | sharada section mark-1 [U+111DE] | 𑇞 | |
| <g ref="#sharada-section-mark-2"/> | sharada section mark-2 [U+111DF] | 𑇟 | |
| <g ref="#sharada-separator"/> | sharada separator [U+111C8] | 𑇈 | |
| <g ref="#sharada-continuation-sign"/> | sharada continuation sign [U+111DD] | 𑇝 | |