(archaic) This letter in the Malayalam abugida represents a voiceless unaspirated apical alveolar plosive while ത(ta) represents a laminal dental plosive and ട(ṭa) represents a subapical retroflex plosive.
This letter is archaic and is not included in the current orthography. In the modern orthography, it is written with two letters റ(ṟa) one ontop of the other ⟨റ്റ⟩ or sometimes next to each other ⟨ററ⟩. It was created by Indian poet A. R. Raja Raja Varma in the 1800s, however, it did not become popular.