When I was in Japan I noticed that some of the Buddhist temples had symbols which didn’t look Japanese (see the picture below). My guess was that they are in Pali, but I am not sure and it would have been good to find out.
However, recently I came across another symbol (image 1 below). This time it was in a book which said that it is ‘yakushi’ - Sanskrit for ‘healing Buddha’. I think it is a distorted ॐ (images 2-4 below) – Hindu and Buddhist ‘OM ’ incantation. Still don’t know how ‘OM ’ became ‘yakushi’ in Japan.
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Figure 1 is not written in Sanskrit Devanagari script like figure 4. It's Sanskrit written in Siddham script, a script still used in Shingon. Those are also two different letters. Figure one is BAI, seed letter for Bhaisajyaguru (Yakushi). Figure 4 is Om.
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