A small selection fo UTF8 Devanagari fonts usable under free / open licence.

Fonts - Schriften für Devanagari und Lautschrift (ISO 15919)

Siddhanta - Bombay, Cakravat, Calcutta, Nepali

Format: ttf
Variants: regular
Support: Devanagari, Latin (ISO 159199 with extensive coverage of letters with diacritics), Cyrillic (Russian and other Slavic languages)
Stats: 1,980 glyphs and no kerning pairs
Designer: Mihail Bayaryn
URL: www.svayambhava.org
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Release Date: 2011 (Version 1.000)

The font can be used for Sanskrit, Vedic, Hindi, Nepali and other languages which use the Devanagari script.

The main features of the Siddhanta font:

  • Ligatures. Siddhanta uses vertical ligature composition; due to this feature it supports the largest amount of Devanagari ligatures;
  • Variations. Siddhanta supports many ligature variations and script variations Calcutta, Bombay and Nepali styles;
  • Character set. Siddhanta contains Vedic and Devanagari Extended Unicode character sets. The font also contains Latin and Cyrillic character sets and can be used for Sanskrit transliteration;
  • Compatibility. Siddhanta supports Unicode 6.0 standard and is compatible with Intranslator 2003 and partly compatible with Chandas font;
  • Hinting. Siddhanta is a manually hinted true type font - it is good for use both in screen and in print; its line weight is good for eyes;
  • Calligraphy. Siddhanta is a calligraphically precise and realistic font - there are no gaps between half-forms and full forms of characrets. The font can be used as samples for learning the Devanagari writing.
  • Free. Siddhanta font software (including font variations and Vaidika IME) is published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. The limitation of commercial usage means that the font cannot be sold as commercial product but can be used as font in publishing, printing and retailing of other commercial products. Siddhanta can be used as web font. It can be included in free and commercial software distributives as free addition, without any additional payment for it. Latin and Cyrillic glyph sets (based on DejaVu font) can be used according to free license.
  • Accents. Siddhanta supports both usual Ṛg Veda and Sāmaveda accents.

Chandas and Uttara

Format: ttf
Variants: regular
Support: Devanagari, Latin (ISO 159199 with extensive coverage of letters with diacritics), Cyrillic (Russian and other Slavic languages)
Stats: 5,092 glyphs and 1,597 kerning pairs. 4347 glyphs: 325 half-forms, 960 half-forms context-variations, 2743 ligature-signs
Designer: Mihail Bayaryn
URL: www.sanskritweb.net/cakram/
License: GNU General Public License
Release Date: 2008 (Version 1.2)

The font is notable for containing a particularly extensive set of conjunct ligatures for Sanskrit and also supporting Vedic accents unavailable in other Devanagari fonts at the time of its release. Though this font was primarily designed for writing Sanskrit, it may be used for all languages written in the Devanagari script, including Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali.

The Chandas font contains 4347 glyphs: 325 half-forms, 960 half-forms context-variations, 2743 ligature-signs. This font is therefore useful for those who want to see old Sanskrit texts in their original form. It is designed especially for Vedic and Classical Sanskrit but can also be used for Hindi, Nepali and other modern Indian languages. The font includes Vedic accents and many additional signs and provides maximal support for Devanagari script. Chandas and Uttara supports both usual Ṛg Veda and Sāmaveda accents.

Chandas also includes Latin and Cyrillic characters with diacritic marks according to ISO15919 and corresponding Open Type tables for Sanskrit transliteration.

The Chandas font has a companion font called Uttara. While the Chandas font has glyphs in the Southern (Bombay) style of Devanagari script, which is the most commonly used today, the Uttara font has glyphs which follow the old Northern (Calcutta) style of Devanagari Script.

Download: chandas.ttf (Version 1.2) | uttara.ttf (Version 1.2)

Sanskrit 2003

Format: ttf
Variants: regular
Stats: Version 1.30 (Oktober, 21, 2014) has 1,608 glyphs and no kerning pairs
Support: Devanagari
URL: omkarananda-ashram.org

Including Vedic accents (Only usual Ṛg Veda, but no Sāmaveda accents).

Download: sanskrit2003.ttf