Soyombo

The Soyombo script was devised in 1686 by the Mongolian monk and scholar Zanabazar (Öndür Gegeen Zanabazar), also known as Bogd Zanabazar, who was the first Jebtsundamba Khutughtu, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. Zanabazar created the script for use in Buddhist religious contexts and it was used to transcribe Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Mongolian texts. The script has a rich symbolic dimension: its first character — also called the Soyombo symbol — is a complex emblem that has become a national symbol of Mongolia and appears on its flag and coat of arms. Soyombo is an abugida with consonants bearing an inherent /a/ vowel, and it supports the complex conjunct consonant clusters found in Sanskrit. The script is written left to right and was added to Unicode in version 10.0 (2017).