IAST representation of Devanāgarī letters#

IAST stands for International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration.
It is a way to represent the Sanskrit sounds with latin alphabet using additional diacritic marks. Most books and many websites use this format for representing Sanskrit words.
It can be very useful for people not familiar with the Devanāgarī script, however it does come with its downsides. Primarily, the diacritic marks are not available on standard keyboards, making it hard to type out. It is prone to errors being inadvertently introduced in the text, and, importantly people unfamiliar with IAST pronunciation can only vaguely approximate the intended sound.

Another transliteration scheme known as: Harvard-Kyoto (or sometimes Kyoto-Harvard), named after the Universities that collaborated to devise this, is a means of using only the standard English/European keyboard to use with online input tools for generating the desired Devanāgarī or IAST output. It is often used by online Sanskrit dictionaries.

The Transliteration Tool on this website also takes HK input to generate the corresponding IAST and Devanāgarī text.

Devanāgarī /IAST /Harvard-Kyoto Conversion Table#

IAST: iInternational Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration HK: Harvard-Kyoto transliteration scheme - for online dictionaries, or writing tools input such as the Transliteration tool

देवनागरी	अ	आ	इ	ई	उ	ऊ	ऋ	ॠ	ऌ	ॡ	ए	ऐ	ओ	औ	अं	अः
IAST	a	ā	i	ī	u	ū	ṛ	ṝ	ḷ	ḹ	e	ai	o	au	ṃ	ḥ
Harvard–Kyoto	a	A	i	I	u	U	R	RR	L	LL	e	ai	o	au	M	H

Velar (ka-varga)#

देवनागरी	क	ख	ग	घ	ङ
IAST	k	kh	g	gh	ṅ
Harvard–Kyoto	k	kh	g	gh	G

Palatal (ca-varga)#

देवनागरी	च	छ	ज	झ	ञ
IAST	c	ch	j	jh	ñ
Harvard–Kyoto	c	ch	j	jh	J

Retroflex (ṭa-varga)#

देवनागरी	ट	ठ	ड	ढ	ण
IAST	ṭ	ṭh	ḍ	ḍh	ṇ
Harvard–Kyoto	T	Th	D	Dh	N

Dental (ta-varga)#

देवनागरी	त	थ	द	ध	न
IAST	t	th	d	dh	n
Harvard–Kyoto	t	th	d	dh	n

Labial (pa-varga)#

देवनागरी	प	फ	ब	भ	म
IAST	p	ph	b	bh	m
Harvard–Kyoto	p	ph	b	bh	m

Semivowels#

देवनागरी	य	र	ल	व
IAST	y	r	l	v
Harvard–Kyoto	y	r	l	v

Sibilants & aspirate#

देवनागरी	श	ष	स	ह
IAST	ś	ṣ	s	h
Harvard–Kyato	S	z	s	h

IAST Cheat Sheet#

A quick IAST reference sorted in the usual Devanāgarī order

IAST Vowels#

a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ e ai o au

IAST Diacritics#

ṃ (anusvāra)
ḥ (visarga)

IAST Consonants#

k kh g gh ṅ
c ch j jh ñ
ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ
t th d dh n
p ph b bh m
y r l v
ś ṣ s h