Saurahstra is a minority Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Southern part of India, mostly in the state of Tamil Nadu. The Ancestors of the modern Saurashtra speaking people, are believed to have migrated from Saurashtra region of the Gujarat and settled over in Tamil Nadu and the surrounding areas.

Saurashtra for most of the part had been an oral language lacking any script of its own, around the 17th - 18th century some attempted to write it in Telugu script. Around 19th Century a script was invented. Lots of books were printed in this script, but it never really picked up.  Attempted were made to revitalize the script in later half of the 19th Century, ignoring most of the complex conjunct characters. But still, the script is mostly unknown even to the native Saurashtrans. 

Features of Saurashtra Script

Saurashtra Sign Haaru

Saurashtra has letters for additional aspirated sounds - lha, rha, nha & mha. This additional aspiration is indicated by placing a sign called "haaru" next to the Consonants la, ra, na & ma to produce a digraph.  

Haddu Yakara

Haddu Yakara is a special conjunct sign to denote the geminated /y/ sound . It is a remnant of the old script, being a double conjunct conjunct of /y/. It is placed before the consonant.

Saurashtra syllable /vyya/

Saurashtra Font

Saurashtra Script has been added into the Unicode Standard recently.  There is only one standard Unicode font available for Saurashtra - Sourashtra. The font must be installed to view Unicode Saurashtra text. The Modern simplified Saurashtra only supports conjuncts Ksha & Haddu Yakara.

Issues in Unicode Saurashtra display

Except firefox, other browsers (Chrome & IE) do not display the Saurashtra conjuncts (in Sourashtra font) properly. However, Word processors AFAIK do not have any issues.

Sample Sanskrit Text

अनिरोधम् अनुत्पादम् अनुच्छेदम् अशाश्वतम् ।     

अनेकार्थम् अनानार्थम् अनागमम् अनिर्गमम् ॥     

यः प्रतीत्यसमुत्पादं प्रपञ्चोपशमं शिवम् ।     

देशयामास संबुद्धस्तं वन्दे वदतां वरम् ॥  

ꢂꢥꢶꢬꣂꢤꢪ꣄ ꢂꢥꢸꢡ꣄ꢦꢵꢣꢪ꣄ ꢂꢥꢸꢗ꣄ꢘꢿꢣꢪ꣄ ꢂꢯꢵꢯ꣄ꢮꢡꢪ꣄ |    

ꢂꢥꢿꢒꢵꢬ꣄ꢢꢪ꣄ ꢂꢥꢵꢥꢵꢬ꣄ꢢꢪ꣄ ꢂꢥꢵꢔꢪꢪ꣄ ꢂꢥꢶꢬ꣄ꢔꢪꢪ꣄ ||     

ꢫꢁ ꢦ꣄ꢬꢡꢷꢡ꣄ꢫꢱꢪꢸꢡ꣄ꢦꢵꢣꢀ ꢦ꣄ꢬꢦꢛ꣄ꢗꣂꢦꢯꢪꢀ ꢯꢶꢮꢪ꣄ |     

ꢣꢿꢯꢫꢵꢪꢵꢱ ꢱꢀꢨꢸꢣ꣄ꢤꢱ꣄ꢡꢀ ꢮꢥ꣄ꢣꢿ ꢮꢣꢡꢵꢀ ꢮꢬꢪ꣄ ||

Other Options

Use Haaru

The converter by default doesn't display the "haaru" sign. The nha, rha, lha,  mha are converted as ꢥ꣄ꢲ, ꢬ꣄ꢲ, ꢭ꣄ꢲ,  ꢪ꣄ꢲ (with ꢲ). To enable the usage of Haaru, select this option. With this option enabled  ꢥꢴ, ꢬꢴ, ꢭꢴ,  ꢪꢴ is displayed instead with Haaru.