What is an akshara and why does it differ from the character count?

An akshara is a user-perceived syllabic unit — a consonant cluster plus its vowel sign. A conjunct like स्त counts as one akshara but three Unicode code points, so the two numbers legitimately differ.

Which count should I use for a database field limit?

Use the UTF-16 length or code-point count, because those reflect how the string is stored. Aksharas measure how a reader perceives the text, not its byte footprint.

How are vowel signs and the anusvara counted?

Dependent vowel signs, anusvara, visarga and the nukta attach to the preceding base and do not start a new akshara, matching how a Hindi reader perceives a single letter.

Does it handle mixed Hindi and English text?

Yes. Non-Devanagari visible characters each count as their own unit, and whitespace is excluded from the akshara and no-spaces counts.

Is my text uploaded anywhere?

No. All counting happens locally in your browser, so nothing you paste is ever sent to a server.

Hindi Character Counter

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This tool counts Devanagari Hindi text the way both a reader and a computer see it. It reports the user-perceived aksharas (syllabic letters) separately from raw Unicode code points, which is essential because Hindi conjuncts pack several code points into a single visible letter.

How it works

The text is first split into Unicode code points. Each code point is classified: independent vowels and consonants are bases that begin a new akshara, while dependent vowel signs, the anusvara, visarga, nukta and the virama (्, U+094D) are combining marks that attach to the previous akshara. The virama is special — when it joins two consonants into a conjunct, the following consonant does not start a new akshara. Whitespace is excluded from the letter counts.

Example

The word नमस्ते (namaste) contains the conjunct स्त:

न  म  स  ्  त  े

That is 6 code points but only 4 aksharas (न, म, स्त, े attaching to त). A naive .length counter would over-report the perceived letter count.

Notes

Use the akshara count for human-facing “letters” and the code-point or UTF-16 count for storage and field-length limits. Everything runs locally in your browser.