Om meaning
Om (or Aum) is a sacred syllable in Vedic and later Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain practice. The Mandukya Upanishad reads its parts as states of consciousness. It is not a generic “peace” stamp.
A sonic cosmology in one syllable.
The name. Praṇava, the humming; often analyzed as the measures A, U, M.
Where it comes from
The Mandukya Upanishad divides the syllable into three audible measures and a silence after them: waking, dream, deep sleep, and turiya — the fourth, which is not a state beside the others but the witness of them. Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain liturgy all sound it. As a printed mark it becomes common much later than the sound.
Indic
Not a generic peace sign
Nothing in the syllable means “relax.” It is a claim about consciousness: that ordinary states do not exhaust what is aware of them. The bindu, the dot, is often read as that silence made visible. Treat the character as a sentence, not a mood.
Sikh
Near to Ik Onkar, not the same
Guru Nanak’s ੴ is in conversation with this sound and refuses to be a copy of it. Om can sit inside a Hindu theology of many forms of one brahman. Ik Onkar opens a scripture that will not share the divine out into those forms. Hear the kinship, then read the next line.
Near this
Sources
- Mandukya Upanishad
- Chandogya Upanishad 1.1 on the syllable
Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.
Your margin
Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.
symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 2 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.