article is about the sacred sound and spiritual icon in Hindu religion.

For movies and other uses, see Om

(disambiguation).

"Aum" redirects here. For other uses, see Aum (disambiguation).

The "Om" or "Aum" symbol in Devanagari

Om ( listen , IAST: Auṃ or Oṃ, Devanagari: ॐ) is a sacred sound and a spiritual icon
in Hindu religion.[1][2] It is also a mantra in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.[3][4]
Om is part of the iconography found in ancient and medieval era manuscripts, temples,
monasteries and spiritual retreats in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.[5][6] The symbol
has a spiritual meaning in all Indian dharmas, but the meaning and connotations
of Om vary between the diverse schools within and across the various traditions.
In Hinduism, Om is one of the most important spiritual symbols.[7][8] It refers
to Atman (soul, self within) and Brahman (ultimate reality, entirety of the universe, truth,
divine, supreme spirit, cosmic principles, knowledge).[9][10][11]The syllable is often found at
the beginning and the end of chapters in the Vedas, the Upanishads, and other Hindu
texts.[11] 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 passages
(sanskara) such as weddings, and sometimes during meditative and spiritual activities such
as Yoga.[12][13]
The syllable is also referred to
as omkara(ॐॐॐॐॐ, oṃkāra), aumkara (ॐॐॐॐॐ, auṃkāra),
and pranava (ॐॐॐॐॐ, praṇava).[14]
Origin and meaning
Written representationEdit
Phonologically, the syllable ॐॐॐ represents /aum/, which is
regularly monophthongised to [õː] in Sanskrit phonology. When occurring within spoken
Sanskrit, 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 auof aum does not
form vriddhi (au) but guna (o) per Pāṇini 6.1.95 (i.e. 'om'). It is sometimes also written
ॐॐॐॐ (o̿ m [õːːm]), notably by Arya Samaj, where ॐ (i.e., the digit "3") is pluta("three
times as long"), indicating a length of three morae (that is, the time it takes to say three
syllables) — an overlong nasalisedclose-mid back rounded vowel.
The Om symbol is a ligature in Devanagari, combining ॐ (au) and chandrabindu (ँ, ṃ).
In Unicode, the symbol is encoded at U+0950 ॐDEVANAGARI OM and at U+1F549 🕉 OM
SYMBOL("generic symbol independent of Devanagari font").
The Om or Aum symbol is found on ancient coins, in regional scripts. In Sri
Lanka, Anuradhapura era coins (dated from the 1st to 4th centuries) are embossed
with Aum along with other symbols.[27] Nagari or Devanagarirepresentations are found
epigraphically on medieval sculpture, such as the[which?] dancing Shiva (ca. 10th to 12th
century); Joseph Campbell (1949) even argued that the dance posture itself can be taken to
represent AUMas a symbol of the entirety of "consciousness, universe" and "the message
that God is within a person and without".[28]
The Om symbol, with epigraphical variations, is also found in many southeast
Asiancountries. For example, it is called Unalom or Aum in Thailand and has been a part of
various flags and official emblems such as in the Thong Chom Klao of King Rama IV (r.
1851–1868).[29] The Cambodian official seal has similarly incorporated
the Aum symbol.[30]In traditional Chinese characters, it is written as 唵 (pinyin – ǎn), and
as 嗡 (pinyin – wēng) in simplified Chinese characters.[citation needed]
There have been proposals that the Omsyllable may already have had written
representations in Brahmi script, dating to before the Common Era. A proposal by Deb
(1848) held that the swastika is "a monogrammatic representation of the syllable Om,
wherein two Brahmi /o/ characters (U+11011 𑀑 BRAHMI LETTER O) were superposed
crosswise and the 'm' was represented by dot".[31] A commentary in Nature considers this
theory questionable and unproven.[32] Roy (2011) proposed that Omwas represented using
the Brahmi symbols for "A", "U" and "M" (𑀅 𑀉 𑀫), and that this may have influenced the
unusual epigraphicalfeatures of the symbol ॐ for Om.[33][34]
Om in various scripts

in Devanagari, Gujarati, Sourashtri & Historical

Marathi Script (Modi)

(Assamese, Bengali, Oriya)[35]