Om or Aum (also , written in Devanāgari as ॐ and as ओम्, in Sanskrit known as praṇava प्रणव (lit. "to sound out loudly"), Omkara, or Auṃkāra (also as Aumkāra) ओंकार (lit. "Auṃ form/syllable"), is a sacred or mystical syllable in most Dharmic or Indian religions, specifically Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.
Om is pronounced as a long or over-long nasalized close-mid back rounded vowel, [õːː]), though there are other enunciations adhered to in received traditions. It is placed at the beginning of most Hindu texts as a sacred incantation to be intoned at the beginning and end of a reading of the Vedas or prior to any prayer or mantra. The Māndukya Upanishad is entirely devoted to the explanation of the syllable. The syllable consists of three phonemes, a Vaishvanara,[1] u Hiranyagarbha and m Iswara, which symbolize the beginning, duration, and dissolution of the universe and the associated gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, respectively.[2] The name Omkara is taken as a name of God in the Hindu revivalist Arya Samaj.
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The Sanskrit name for the syllable is praṇava, from a root nu "to shout, sound", verbal pra-nu- being attested as "to make a humming or droning sound" in the Brahmanas, and taking the specific meaning of "to utter the syllable om" in the Chāndogya Upanishad and the Shrauta Sutras. More rarely used terms are akṣara (lit. symbol, character) or ekākṣara (lit. one symbol, character), and in later times omkāra becomes prevalent.
Phonemically, the syllable is /aum/, which is regularly monophthongized to [õː] in Sanskrit phonology. It is sometimes also written with pluti, as o3m (ओ३म्), notably by Arya Samaj. When occurring within a Sanskrit utterance, the syllable is subject to the normal rules of sandhi in Sanskrit grammar, however with the additional peculiarity that after preceding a or ā, the au of aum does not form vriddhi (au) but guna (o) per Pāṇini 6.1.95 (i.e. 'om').
The om symbol is a ligature of Devanagari ओ+ँ (oṃ, encoded in Unicode at U+0950 ॐ, the Tibetan script variant ༀ at U+0F00, and the Chinese version 唵 at U+5535 or 吽 at U+543D).
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The syllable om is first described as all-encompassing mystical entity in the Upanishads. Today, in all Hindu art and all over India and Nepal, 'om' can be seen virtually everywhere, a common sign for Hinduism and its philosophy and theology. Hindus believe that as creation began, the divine, all-encompassing consciousness took the form of the first and original vibration manifesting as sound "OM".[3] Before creation began it was "Shunyākāsha", the emptiness or the void. Shunyākāsha, meaning literally "no sky", is more than nothingness, because everything then existed in a latent state of potentiality. The vibration of "OM" symbolizes the manifestation of God in form ("sāguna brahman"). "OM" is the reflection of the absolute reality, it is said to be "Adi Anadi", without beginning or the end and embracing all that exists.[3] The mantra "OM" is the name of God, the vibration of the Supreme. When taken letter by letter, A-U-M represents the divine energy (Shakti) united in its three elementary aspects: Bhrahma Shakti (creation), Vishnu Shakti (preservation) and Shiva Shakti (liberation, and/or destruction).[3]
The syllable is mentioned in all the Upanishads, specially elaborated upon in the Taittiriya, Chāndogya and Māndukya Upanishad set forth as the object of profound religious meditation, the highest spiritual efficacy being attributed not only to the whole word but also to the three sounds a (a-kāra), u (u-kāra), m (ma-kāra), of which it consists. A-kara means form or shape like earth, trees, or any other object. U-kāra means formless or shapeless like water, air or fire. Ma-kāra means neither shape nor shapeless (but still exists) like the dark energy content of the Universe. When we combine all three syllables we get AUM which is a combination of A-kāra, U-kāra, and Ma-kāra.[4]
The Katha Upanishad has:
The Chāndogya Upanishad (1.1.1-1) states:
The Bhagavad Gi:tā (8.13) states that:
In Bhagavad Gi:tā (9.17): Lord Krishna says to Arjuna - "I am the father of this universe, the mother, the support and the grandsire. I am the object of knowledge, the purifier and the syllable Oḿ. I am also the Ṛig, the Sāma and the Yajur Vedas."
The Bhagvad Gi:tā (17.23) has:
In the following sūtra it emphasizes, "The repetition of Om should be made with an understanding of its meaning".[6]
In the book Om Chanting and Meditation Amit Ray states:
Om is not just a sound or vibration. It is not just a symbol. It is the entire cosmos, whatever we can see, touch, hear and feel. Moreover, it is all that is within our perception and all that is beyond our perception. It is the core of our very existence. If you think of Om only as a sound, a technique or a symbol of the Divine, you will miss it altogether. ..... Om is the mysterious cosmic energy that is the substratum of all the things and all the beings of the entire universe. It is an eternal song of the Divine. It is continuously resounding in silence on the background of everything that exists. [7]
In Purānic Hinduism, Om is the mystic name for the Hindu Trimurti, and represents the union of the three gods, viz. a for Brahma, u for Vishnu and m for Mahadev which is another name of Shiva. The three sounds also symbolize the three Vedas (Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda).
According to Hindu philosophy (see Māndukya Upanishad), the letter A represents creation, when all existence issued forth from Brahma's golden nucleus; the letter U refers to Vishnu the God of the middle who preserves this world by balancing Brahma on a lotus above himself, and the letter M symbolizes the final part of the cycle of existence, when Vishnu falls asleep and Shiva has to breathe in so that all existing things have to disintegrate and are reduced to their essence to him. More broadly, Om is said to be the primordial sound that was present at the creation of the universe. It is said to be the original sound that contains all other sounds, all words, all languages and all mantras.
Vaishnava Dvaita philosophies teach that 'Om' is an impersonal sound representation of Vishnu/Krishna while Hari Nama is the personal sound representation. A represents Krishna, U Srīmati Rādhārāni and M jivas. According to Srīdhara Svāmi the pranava has five parts: A, U, M, the nasal bindu and the reverberation (nāda). Liberated souls meditate on the Lord at the end of that reverberation. For both Hindus and Buddhists this syllable is sacred and so laden with spiritual energy that it may only be pronounced with complete concentration.
In Advaita philosophy it is frequently used to represent three subsumed into one, a triune, a common theme in Hinduism. It implies that our current existence is mithyā and maya, "falsehood", that in order to know the full truth we must comprehend beyond the body and intellect the true nature of infinity. Essentially, upon moksha (mukti, samādhi) one is able not only to see or know existence for what it is, but to become it. When one gains true knowledge, there is no split between knower and known: one becomes knowledge/consciousness itself. In essence, Om is the signifier of the ultimate truth that all is one.
When Om is a part of a place name (for example Omkāreshwar), or is used as a man's name, it is spelled phonetically using ordinary letters of whatever Indian alphabet is used in the area. The adherents of Arya Samaj always use the ordinary letters अ(Ah), ऊ(ooh) and म(ma) to write Om.
In Jainism, Om is regarded to be a condensed form of reference to the Pañca-Parameṣṭhi, by their initials A+A+A+U+M (o3m). The Dravyasamgraha quotes a Prakrit line:
Thus, ओं नमः (oṃ namaḥ) is a short form of the Navkar Mantra.
Buddhists place om at the beginning of their Vidya-Sadaksari or mystical formulary in six syllables (viz., om mani padme hum) as well as most other mantras and dhāranis. As a seed syllable (bija mantra), it is also considered holy in Esoteric Buddhism.
The syllable is often written with the Chinese character 唵 (pinyin ǎn) or 嗡 (pinyin wēng) in Buddhist texts of East Asian provenience.
A key distinction should be made here between Buddhism as it arose in India and Buddhism after the migration of the teachings to Tibet under the guidance of Padmasambhava. In its original form, Buddhism in India was characterized mainly by types of mindfulness meditation that did not involve mantras.[8] Buddhism in Tibet after the merger with Bon Shamanism, and heavy Hindu influence, is now characterized by the AH bija and can be roughly translated as representing pure spirit (the fifth element in the Tibetan system).
Paying close attention to the calligraphic representation, the Vedic or Indian OM is what most Westerners are used to and the Tibetan script OM is less widespread in popular culture.[9] Even Tibetan handicrafts made in Nepal tend to use the Indian OM for recognizability.
Ik Onkar (Modern Punjabi ਇੱਕ ਓਅੰਕਾਰ, Ikk Oankar, iconically ੴ in the Gurmukhi script — a combination of the numeral one ੧ and the letter ūṛā ੳ with the vowel marker hōṛā — and sometimes written in full as ਏਕੰਕਾਰੁ,[10] ikonkar) is the statement of the uniqueness of God in Sikhism,[11] and is commonly translated simply as "one God".[12] Within the phrase, the figure ੧, pronounced ik, is the numeral one, and the word onkar is a figurative reference to God: the Hindu concept of om being combined with ਕਾਰ, kar, to mean "creator of om"[13] — the word ਕਾਰ appearing several times in the Guru Granth Sahib, and meaning "create", "work", or "action".[14] Thus, although om is referenced, Sikhism uses it only to starkly emphasize its monotheism without subscribing to its philosophy in and of itself.[13]
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