Om (or Aum) (; Sanskrit: ॐ, ओम्|translit=Oṃ, Auṃ|translit-std=IAST, ISO 15919: Ōṁ) is a symbol representing a sacred sound, syllable, mantra, and an invocation in Hinduism.[1] [2] Its written representation is the most important symbol of Hinduism.[3] It is the essence of the supreme Absolute, consciousness,[4] [5] [6] Ātman, Brahman, or the cosmic world.[7] [8] [9] In Indic traditions, Om serves as a sonic representation of the divine, a standard of Vedic authority and a central aspect of soteriological doctrines and practices.[10] It is the basic tool for meditation in the yogic path to liberation.[11] The syllable is often found at the beginning and the end of chapters in the Vedas, the Upanishads, and other Hindu texts.
Om emerged in the Vedic corpus and is said to be an encapsulated form of Samavedic chants or songs. It is a sacred spiritual incantation made before and during the recitation of spiritual texts, during puja and private prayers, in ceremonies of rites of passage (samskara) such as weddings, and during meditative and spiritual activities such as Pranava yoga.[12] [13] It is part of the iconography found in ancient and medieval era manuscripts, temples, monasteries, and spiritual retreats in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.[14] [15] As a syllable, it is often chanted either independently or before a spiritual recitation and during meditation in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.[16] [17]
The syllable Om is also referred to as Onkara (Omkara) and Pranava among many other names.[18] [19]
The syllable Om is referred to by many names, including:
The etymological origins of ōm (aum) have long been discussed and disputed, with even the Upanishads having proposed multiple Sanskrit etymologies for aum, including: from "ām" (Sanskrit: आम्; "yes"), from "ávam" (Sanskrit: आवम्; "that, thus, yes"), and from the Sanskrit roots "āv-" (Sanskrit: अव्; "to urge") or "āp-" (Sanskrit: आप्; "to attain").[27] In 1889, Maurice Blumfield proposed an origin from a Proto-Indo-European introductory particle "*au" with a function similar to the Sanskrit particle "atha" (Sanskrit: अथ).[27] However, contemporary Indologist Asko Parpola proposes a borrowing from Dravidian "*ām" meaning "'it is so', 'let it be so', 'yes'", a contraction of "*ākum", cognate with modern Tamil "ām" (Tamil: ஆம்) meaning "yes".[27] [28] In the Jaffna Tamil dialect spoken in Sri Lanka, aum is the word for yes.
Regardless of its original meaning, the syllable Om evolves to mean many abstract ideas even in the earliest Upanishads. Max Müller and other scholars state that these philosophical texts recommend Om as a basic tool for meditation and explain the various meanings that the syllable may hold in the mind of one meditating, ranging from "artificial and senseless" to the "highest concepts such as the cause of the Universe, essence of life, Brahman, Atman, and Self-knowledge".[29] [30]
The syllable Om is first mentioned in the Upanishads. It has been associated with various concepts, such as "cosmic sound", "mystical syllable", "affirmation to something divine", or as symbolism for abstract spiritual concepts in the Upanishads.[9] In the Aranyaka and the Brahmana layers of Vedic texts, the syllable is so widespread and linked to knowledge, that it stands for the "whole of Veda".[9] The symbolic foundations of Om are repeatedly discussed in the oldest layers of the early Upanishads.[31] [32] The Aitareya Brahmana of Rig Veda, in section 5.32, suggests that the three phonetic components of Om (a + u + m) correspond to the three stages of cosmic creation, and when it is read or said, it celebrates the creative powers of the universe.[9] [33] However, in the eight anuvaka of the Taittiriya Upanishad, which consensus research indicates was formulated around the same time or preceding Aitareya Brahmana, the sound Aum is attributed to reflecting the inner part of the word Brahman. Put another way, it is the Brahman, in the form of a word.[34] The Brahmana layer of Vedic texts equates Om with bhur-bhuvah-svah, which symbolizes "the whole Veda". They offer various shades of meaning to Om, such as it being "the universe beyond the sun", or that which is "mysterious and inexhaustible", or "the infinite language, the infinite knowledge", or "essence of breath, life, everything that exists", or that "with which one is liberated".[9] The Samaveda, the poetical Veda, orthographically maps Om to the audible, the musical truths in its numerous variations (Oum, Aum, Ovā Ovā Ovā Um, etc.) and then attempts to extract musical meters from it.[9]
When occurring within spoken Classical Sanskrit, the syllable is subject to the normal rules of sandhi in Sanskrit grammar, with the additional peculiarity that the initial o of "Om" is the guṇa vowel grade of u, not the vṛddhi grade, and is therefore pronounced as a monophthong with a long vowel (in Sanskrit pronounced as /oː/), ie. ōm not aum.[35] Furthermore, the final m is often assimilated into the preceding vowel as nasalisation . As a result, Om is regularly pronounced in Sanskrit pronounced as /õː/ in the context of Sanskrit.
However, this o reflects the older Vedic Sanskrit diphthong au, which at that stage in the language's history had not yet monophthongised to o. This being so, the syllable Om is often archaically considered as consisting of three phonemes: "a-u-m".[36] [37] [38] [39] Accordingly, some denominations maintain the archaic diphthong au viewing it to be more authentic and closer to the language of the Vedas.
In the context of the Vedas, particularly the Vedic Brahmanas, the vowel is often pluta ("three times as long"), indicating a length of three morae, that is, the time it takes to say three light syllables. Additionally, a diphthong becomes with the prolongation of its first vowel. When e and o undergo they typically revert to the original diphthongs with the initial a prolonged,[40] realised as an overlong open back unrounded vowel (ā̄um or a3um in Sanskrit pronounced as /ɑːːum/). This extended duration is emphasised by denominations who regard it as more authentically Vedic, such as Arya Samaj.
However, Om is also attested in the Upanishads without pluta, and many languages related to or influenced by Classical Sanskrit, such as Hindustani, share its pronunciation of Om (in Sanskrit pronounced as /õː/ or in Sanskrit pronounced as /oːm/).
Nagari or Devanagari representations are found epigraphically on sculpture dating from Medieval India and on ancient coins in regional scripts throughout South Asia. Om is represented in Devanagari as Sanskrit: ओम्, composed of four elements: the vowel letter, the vowel diacritic, the consonant letter, and the virama stroke which indicates the absence of an implied final vowel. Historically, the combination represented a diphthong, often transcribed as, but it now represents a long vowel, . (See above.) The syllable is sometimes written Sanskrit: ओ३म्, where (i.e., the digit "3") explicitly indicates pluta ('three times as long') which is otherwise only implied. For this same reason Om may also be written Hindi: ओऽम् in languages such as Hindi, with the being used to indicate prolonging the vowel sound. (However, this differs from the usage of the in Sanskrit, where it would instead indicate the prodelision of the initial vowel.) Om may also be written Hindi: ओं, with an reflecting the pronunciation of in Sanskrit pronounced as /õː/ in languages such as Hindi. In languages such as Urdu and Sindhi Om may be written in Arabic script, although speakers of these languages may also use Devanagari representations.
The commonly seen representation of the syllable Om, Sanskrit: {{large|ॐ, is a cursive ligature in Devanagari, combining with and the chandrabindu (ँ,). In Unicode, the symbol is encoded at and at as a "generic symbol independent of Devanagari font".
In some South Asian writing systems, the Om symbol has been simplified further. In Bengali and Assamese Om is written simply as without an additional curl. In languages such as Bengali differences in pronunciation compared to Sanskrit have made the addition of a curl for redundant. Although the spelling is simpler, the pronunciation remains in Bengali pronounced as /õː/. Similarly, in Odia Om is written as without an additional diacritic.
In Tamil, Om is written as, a ligature of Tamil: ஓ (ō) and Tamil: ம் (m), while in Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam, Om is written simply as the letter for ō followed by (Kannada: ಓಂ, Telugu: ఓం, and Malayalam: ഓം, respectively).
There have been proposals that the Om syllable may already have had written representations in Brahmi script, dating to before the Common Era. A proposal by Deb (1921) held that the swastika is a monogrammatic representation of the syllable Om, wherein two Brahmi /o/ characters were superposed crosswise and the 'm' was represented by dot.[41] A commentary in Nature (1922) considers this theory questionable and unproven.[42] A. B. Walawalkar (1951) proposed that Om was represented using the Brahmi symbols for "A", "U", and "M", and that this may have influenced the unusual epigraphical features of the symbol for Om.[43] [44] Parker (1909) wrote that an "Aum monogram", distinct from the swastika, is found among Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions in Sri Lanka,[45] including Anuradhapura era coins, dated from the 1st to 4th centuries CE, which are embossed with Om along with other symbols.[46]
The Om symbol, with epigraphical variations, is also found in many Southeast Asian countries.
In Southeast Asia, the Om symbol is widely conflated with that of the unalome; originally a representation of the Buddha's urna curl and later a symbol of the path to nirvana, it is a popular yantra in Southeast Asia, particularly in Cambodia and Thailand. It frequently appears in sak yant religious tattoos, and has been a part of various flags and official emblems such as in the Thong Chom Klao of King Rama IV [47] and the present-day royal arms of Cambodia.[48]
The Khmer adopted the symbol since the 1st century during the Kingdom of Funan, where it is also seen on artefacts from Angkor Borei, once the capital of Funan. The symbol is seen on numerous Khmer statues from Chenla to Khmer Empire periods and still in used until the present day.[49] [50]
In Chinese characters, Om is typically transliterated as either 唵 or 嗡 .