In the Devanāgarī script, the danda (Sanskrit daṇḍa "stick") is a punctuation character. The glyph consists of a single vertical stroke. The character can be found at code point U+0964 (।) in Unicode. The "double danda" is at U+0965 (॥). ISCII encodes danda at 0xEA.
The danda marks the end of a sentence or period, comparable to a full stop (period) as commonly used in the Latin alphabet. In metrical texts, a double danda is used to delimit verses, and a single danda to delimit a pada or semi-verse.
The word daṇḍa literally means "stick, staff, rod, pole, cudgel, club", and is also used in the sense of "tusk", "trunk", "stalk, stem", or "handle".
As a unit of length, it corresponds to four hastas "hands". The term can also refer to a sceptre as a symbol of power and sovereignty, and expresses "power over" in compounds, also on the sense of judicial authority and punishment (chastisement, imprisonment, etc.) and also including the sense "control, restraint, arrest, cessation" as in vāg-daṇḍa, karma-daṇḍa, mano-daṇḍa, etc.
It is also a slang for penis.