Ma: The Ranjana Letter

Ma is the fifth and last cell of the labial row, the nasal made with the lips, and it closes the grid of twenty five stops. It is common in Sanskrit in every position, and it is the last letter of the six syllable mantra most often written in Ranjana on prayer wheels and carved stones, so it is among the shapes an outsider is most likely to have seen without knowing what it was. Its place at the end of the fifth class completes a structure that has been building since the first row: five points of articulation, four kinds of stop at each, and a nasal to close each class. What follows in the chart is not part of the grid.

The four semivowels, three sibilants and the aspirate are listed after it because they are not stops and cannot be placed in its columns. In Ranjana Ma is written as any consonant, with the inherent short a, hanging from the head stroke and taking its vowel marks in the four available positions. Ma is also one of the letters most often seen in the compressed monogram writing the script is used for, since a mantra written as a single interlocked figure has to end somewhere and this letter frequently does the ending. What is public in that use is the writing; the practice attached to the syllables belongs to living traditions and is not described here.