Visarga means "sending forth, discharge". In Sanskrit phonology, is the name of a phone,, written as:
Transliteration
Symbol
IAST
Harvard-Kyoto
Visarga is an allophone of and in pausa. Since is a common inflectional suffix, visarga appears frequently in Sanskrit texts. In the traditional order of Sanskrit sounds, visarga and anusvāra appear between vowels and stop consonants. The precise pronunciation of visarga in Vedic texts may vary between Śākhās. Some pronounce a slight echo of the preceding vowel after the aspiration: will be pronounced, and will be pronounced. Visarga is not to be confused with colon.
Types
The visarga is commonly found in writing, resembling the punctuation mark of colon or as two tiny circles one above the other. This form is retained by most Indian scripts. According to Sanskrit phonologists, the visarga has two optional allophones, namely जिह्वामूलीय and उपध्मानीय. The former may be pronounced before,, and the latter before, and, as in तव पितामहः कः, पक्षिणः खे उड्डयन्ते, भोः पाहि, and तपःफलम्. They were written with various symbols, e.g. X-like symbol vs sideways 3-like symbol above flipped sideways one, or both as two crescent-shaped semi-circles one above the other, facing the top and bottom respectively. Distinct signs for jihavamulīya and upadhmanīya exists in Kannada, Tibetan, Sharada, Brahmi and Lantsa scripts.
invented a mark for visarga which he used in a book about Indian orthography.
Javanese
In the Javanese alphabet, the visarga is represented by a two curls to the right of a syllable as : the first curl is short and circular, and the second curl is long. It adds a /-h/ after a vowel.
Kannada
In the Kannada alphabet, the visarga is represented with two small circles to the right of a letter ಃ. It brings an "aḥ" sound to the end of the letter.
Khmer
In the Khmer alphabet, the visarga indicates an aspirated sound added after a syllable. It is represented with two small circles at the right of a letter as ះ, and it should not be confused with the similar-looking yŭkôleăkpĭntŭ, which indicates a short vowel followed by a glottal stop like their equivalent visarga marks in the Thai and Lao scripts.
Lao
In the Lao alphabet, the visarga is represented with two small curled circles to the right of a letter as ◌ະ. As in the neighboring related Thai script, it indicates a glottal stop after the vowel.
Tamil
In the Tamil alphabet, similar to visarga, āytam, is represented with three small circles to the right of a letter as ஃ. It represented a now-obsolete or sound that has either become silent, or pronounced as, or in careful speech. Like Sanskrit, it cannot add on to any letter and add aspiration to them. It should be always placed between a single short vowel and a hard consonant for example அஃது, :ta:எஃகு.
Telugu
In the Telugu alphabet, the visarga is represented with two small circles to the right of a letter ః. It brings an "ah" sound to the end of the letter.
Thai
In the Thai alphabet, the visarga or nom nang thangkhu ) is represented with two small curled circles to the right of a letter as ◌ะ, or hok nuk huk. It represents a glottal stop that follows the affected vowel.
