Alphabet Letters
Devanagari Au औ
Devanagari Letters
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Origin Devanagari forms settle between roughly the seventh and the tenth centuries CE, descending from Brahmi through the Gupta and Nagari hands
Au is the fourteenth letter of the varnamala and the last of the vowels, the strengthened form standing to o as ai stands to e. It is always long and always heavy in metre, and its vowel sign combines an upright stroke to the right with a pair of strokes above the headline. With au the vowel series closes and the consonants begin, and the join is the point at which the logic of the varnamala becomes clearest: the vowels have been laid out by quality and by length, the combination vowels have been derived from them, and what follows is the consonants arranged by the place in the mouth where each is formed. The whole table is an analysis of the sound system rather than an inherited order of signs, which is what distinguishes it from the Greek and Semitic alphabets.
Facts
Origins
Origin PeriodDevanagari forms settle between roughly the seventh and the tenth centuries CE, descending from Brahmi through the Gupta and Nagari hands 3Tradition: Indian epigraphy Place of OriginNorthern India 3Tradition: Indian epigraphy Origin of the NameNamed by its own sound. Devanagari letter names are the sound itself, unlike the Greek and Semitic names, which are borrowed words 1Tradition: Sanskrit phonetics of the grammarians Sense of the NameThe vowel one degree beyond o on the same strengthening scale as ai; the last and longest of the vowel series. 2 Identity
Script TypeIndependent vowel letter of a Brahmi-derived abugida, written where a word begins with the vowel; a dependent sign is used where it follows a consonant 1 PositionFourteenth letter of the varnamala, last of the vowels and last of the four combination vowels 1Tradition: Sanskrit phonetics of the grammarians Attributions
Associated SoundAlways long and heavy in metre; the second strengthening grade of u, standing to o as ai stands to e 2Tradition: Sanskrit phonetics of the grammarians Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceCounted among the matrika, the fifty little mothers of the letter-garland; the count belongs to the series, not to this letter alone 4Tradition: Hindu Tantra, the garland of letters A property of the fifty-letter series. Individual schools assign further correspondences that differ between traditions and are not adopted here. Learn More
Au: The Last of the Vowels
Au is the fourteenth letter of the varnamala and the last of the vowels, the second strengthening of u and so the partner of ai on the labial side. Like the other combination vowels it is always long and always heavy, and its vowel sign combines an upright stroke to the right of the consonant with a pair of strokes above the headline, the same doubling that distinguishes ai from e. It is the least common of the four, appearing chiefly in derivatives formed at the second strengthening grade and in a small body of ordinary vocabulary. With au the vowel series closes, and the point at which it closes is where the design of the varnamala is easiest to see whole.
The series has laid out three basic vowel qualities in short and long pairs, added the two vocalic liquids with their long partners, and then derived four further vowels by combination and strengthening. What follows is a different kind of thing: twenty-five stops arranged in five classes by the place in the mouth where the closure is made, then four semivowels, then three sibilants and a breath. Nothing about that order is inherited or arbitrary. It is an analysis of the sound system of the language, and its authors set it out as a table because that is what it is.
What the Order of the Varnamala Is For
The contrast with the alphabets this atlas covers elsewhere is worth drawing out, because it is the single most important thing to understand about the Devanagari series. Greek, Hebrew, Roman and the cipher alphabets derived from them all preserve, in their order, the order of the Phoenician sequence they descend from; their letters carry inherited names that mean ox, house and camel in a Semitic language, and the sequence has no phonetic logic at all. The varnamala has no inherited names, because each letter is called by its own sound, and its order is phonetic throughout. That difference has practical consequences.
A Sanskrit dictionary is alphabetised in an order that groups sounds by articulation, so a reader who knows the mouth knows where to look. A grammatical rule can refer to a whole class of sounds by naming its position in the table, which is what makes Panini's compression possible. And a tradition that wants to treat the alphabet as a model of emanation, as the Tantric schools do when they call the letters matrika and the series a garland, has an ordered system to work with rather than a list. Andre Padoux's study traces how those schools built on it and how differently they arranged the same material. This atlas records the structure and leaves the interpretations to the traditions that hold them.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived From
Devanagari Au descends from the Brahmi sign of the same value, through the Gupta and Nagari hands of northern India. The two alphabets align letter for letter because both are laid out in the varnamala order, the arrangement the Sanskrit phoneticians fixed by place of articulation.
Related To
Devanagari Au answers to the Gurmukhi bearer Aira, whose own description states the open and diphthongal vowels, a, aa, ai and au, are all written on it.
Ranjana Au and Devanagari Au hold the same position in the inherited varnamala and write the same sound, as separate northern Brahmi descendants rather than as variants of one script. Devanagari is the relative most readers know, so the two charts can be read against each other.
The same letter of the same order in Devanagari. The two scripts are separate descendants of the same late Brahmi stock rather than one being taken from the other, which is why the sound value and the position agree while the shapes do not.
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