Registered: March 2008 Location: Stockholm Posts: 92,635
Aum (also Om) is a mystical or sacred syllable in the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religions. It is placed at the beginning of most Hindu texts as a sacred exclamation to be uttered at the beginning and end of a reading of the Vedas or previously to any prayer or mantra and also is said in the beginning of any puja (religious ritual). The Mandukya Upanishad is entirely devoted to the explanation of the syllable.
It is also believed that after a very long time of meditation the Purusha Sukta revealed the word AUM as being the truth.
With Buddhism's evolution and breaking away from Vedic/Hindu tradition, Aum and other symbology/cosmology/philosophies are shared with the Hindu tradition. This character often appeared as "唵" in Buddhist scripts in East Asia.
