U: The Ranjana Letter

U is the short labial vowel, made with the back of the tongue raised and the lips rounded, and it is the fifth letter of the Ranjana varnamala. It completes the movement the vowel series describes. Beginning at rest with a, the analysis moved forward in the mouth to the palatal i, and now moves back and adds the lips, which is the last of the simple positions available. What follows in the order is not a new position but the vocalic liquids and then the compound vowels, so u is the end of the plain vowels proper.

Sanskrit grammar pairs it with the semivowel va in the way it pairs i with ya, and the alternation between the two is stated as a rule that runs through the formation of words. In writing, the mark for u is placed beneath the consonant it follows rather than before or after it, which is the third of the positions the script uses for vowel marks and the one that makes a syllable tall rather than wide. The independent letter shown here appears only where a word or a syllable opens with the vowel. Because the script hangs from a heavy head stroke, a mark written below the line of letters is well separated from its neighbours and is easy to read even in the compressed writing of a mantra.