Ttha is the second cell of the retroflex row, the aspirated voiceless retroflex, and it carries two distinctions at once. It is retroflex rather than dental, made with the tongue tip curled back, and it is aspirated rather than plain, released with a following puff of breath. Either distinction alone is enough to change a word, and both are marked by giving the sound its own letter rather than by modifying another. This is the point at which the economy of the Brahmic chart becomes clearest. Five points of articulation multiplied by four kinds of stop, plus a nasal for each point, produces twenty five letters from two simple dimensions, and every one of them can be located by counting. Ranjana draws all twenty five in its own hand, with the heavy stems, fine joins and wedge terminals that make the script recognisable, and places each in the position the inherited order assigns.
Nothing about the arrangement is a Newar contribution; the drawing is, and that is where the Valley's invention went. The double distinction also makes this letter a useful test of a typeface. A font that has confused its retroflex and dental rows, or its plain and aspirated columns, will show the error here first, which is one reason a chart of the full inventory is worth drawing before any of it is used.