Ga and the Joined Consonant

The conjunct is the mechanism that most separates a Brahmic script from an alphabet, and the velar row provides some of its commonest instances. When two consonants meet with no vowel between them, Ranjana does not write them as two independent syllable signs, because each sign would carry an inherent a that is not being spoken. Instead the two are drawn as one form, typically with the first reduced or with the second set beneath it, and the whole cluster hangs from the head stroke as a single unit.

Sanskrit permits a great many such clusters, so a script that writes Sanskrit has to be able to build a great many joined forms, and the number a scribe has to know at sight is one of the harder parts of learning any script in this family. In Ranjana the conjuncts are also what gives a formal page its density, since a stacked form reaches further below the line than a plain letter and breaks the even rhythm of the row. That density is part of the script's character in ornament: a Ranjana panel is compact and heavy in a way that suits a lintel, a book cover or the border of a painting, and it is the main reason the script was taken up for display work far outside the Valley where it was made.