ShantiLipi শান্তিলিপি

A Bengali font designed for Vedic text typesetting with full svara (accent) mark support.

Features

• Full Bengali Unicode coverage — 95 Bengali codepoints, 1925 glyphs total
• ba/va distinction — ৰ (U+09F0) for ब (ba) vs ব (U+09AC) for व (va), critical for Sanskrit-in-Bengali
• 40+ conjuncts via OpenType GSUB — ত্র, ক্ষ, ব্র, ন্দ্র, স্ব, জ্ঞ, হ্ন, and more
• 16 Vedic accent marks including:
  • Udatta (U+0951) — single vertical stroke above matra line
  • Anudatta (U+0952) — horizontal stroke below baseline
  • Double Svarita (U+1CDA) — double vertical stroke above matra line
  • Karshana, Shara, Prenkha, Triple Svarita, and more
• Matra-aware accent positioning — udatta clears ি ী ৈ ৌ above; anudatta clears ু ূ ৃ and র-phala below
• Em dash (—) and en dash (–) included
• Installable on Mac, Windows, Linux

The ব/ৰ Distinction

In traditional Sanskrit-in-Bengali typesetting, ब (ba) and व (va) are distinct phonemes:

Glyph	Unicode	Represents	Sanskrit	Example
ব	U+09AC	va (व)	varuna	বরুণ (varuṇa)
ৰ	U+09F0	ba (ब)	brahma	ৰ্রহ্ম (brahma)

ৰ forms conjuncts identically to ব — so ৰ্র renders the same conjunct shape as ব্র.

Installation

Mac: Double-click ShantiLipi-Regular.ttf → Click "Install Font"

Windows: Right-click ShantiLipi-Regular.ttf → "Install" or "Install for all users"

Linux: Copy to ~/.fonts/ or /usr/share/fonts/truetype/shantilipi/ then run fc-cache -fv

Usage with XeLaTeX

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setdefaultlanguage{bengali}
\setmainfont{ShantiLipi}

\begin{document}

% ব = va (व), ৰ = ba (ब)
ওঁ শং নো মিত্রঃ শং বরুণঃ।
ইন্দ্রো ৰৃহস্পতিঃ।
নমো ৰ্রহ্মণে।

% Vedic marks — place after the base character:
% U+0951 ॑ = udatta
% U+0952 ॒ = anudatta
% U+1CDA ᳚ = double svarita

শ॑ং নো॑ মি॑ত্রঃ    % udatta on শ, নো, মি
ন॒মো               % anudatta on ন

\end{document}

Typing Special Characters

Character	Unicode	Mac (Hex Input)	Windows	Purpose
ৰ	U+09F0	Opt+09F0	09F0 Alt+X	ba (ब)
॑	U+0951	Opt+0951	0951 Alt+X	udatta
॒	U+0952	Opt+0952	0952 Alt+X	anudatta
᳚	U+1CDA	Opt+1CDA	1CDA Alt+X	double svarita

Vedic Accent Marks

Mark	Unicode	Position	Description
॑	U+0951	Above	Udatta — single vertical stroke above matra line
॒	U+0952	Below	Anudatta — horizontal stroke below baseline
᳚	U+1CDA	Above	Double Svarita — two vertical strokes above matra line

Plus 13 additional Vedic tone marks from the Unicode Vedic Extensions block (U+1CD0–U+1CFF).

Technical Details

Property	Value
Font format	TrueType (.ttf)
Version	1.2
Glyphs	1925
Bengali codepoints	95
Vedic marks	16
GSUB features	akhn, blwf, blws, cjct, half, hlig, pref, pres, pstf, psts, rphf
GPOS features	blwm, dist, kern, mark, mkmk
File size	~449 KB

License

ShantiLipi is derived from GNU FreeSerif and is released under the GNU General Public License v3 with the Font Exception.

• You can freely use this font in any document
• You can distribute documents using this font without the GPL applying to the document
• If you modify the font itself, you must release modifications under the same GPL license
• See LICENSE for full terms

Credits

• Base font: GNU FreeSerif by Primoz Peterlin, Steve White, and contributors
• Vedic modifications: ShantiLipi Project

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Areas that could use help:

• Refining glyph outlines to match traditional woodblock/letterpress Bengali aesthetic
• Testing across different rendering engines and platforms
• Hinting for better screen rendering at small sizes
• Building an OFL-licensed version (using Noto Sans Bengali base) for Google Fonts submission