This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Devanagari Letters gathers the forty seven signs of the varnamala, the ordered table by which Sanskrit's sound system was analysed and set down, running from the throat to the lips and from the simplest vowel to the most compound.
Every consonant sign already carries the vowel A, so ka is read ka and not k unless a stroke cancels it, which is why A opens the table as the ground the other letters stand on rather than as one letter among equals. The six simple vowels, A, I and U each in a short and long form, are followed by four compound vowels, E, AI, O and AU, produced by the rules of sandhi and always counted as long and metrically heavy. Om is analysed by the tradition as A, U and M in sequence, so three letters of this table are read as the syllable's three states.
The twenty five stops fall into five classes by where in the mouth they are made, velar, palatal, retroflex, dental and labial, and every class repeats the same five step pattern, voiceless, voiceless aspirated, voiced, voiced aspirated, nasal, without exception. Four semivowels, YA, RA, LA and VA, correspond to the vowels I, vocalic R, vocalic L and U, and Sanskrit converts a vowel into its matching semivowel under sandhi. Three sibilants and HA close the table, the sounds made with continuous breath rather than a stop.