Om: Meaning, Symbol and How to Say It

By the Awaken Library Editorial TeamEditorial Team · Updated October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026 · How we write

Om (ॐ, also spelled aum) is a sacred syllable of Hinduism, also used by Buddhists, Jains and, in the form Ik Onkar, Sikhs. It opens and closes prayers, recitations and meditation. The Māṇḍūkya Upanishad calls it “this whole world” and splits it into a, u, m and the silence after. Said aloud, it is one long nasal “ōm”.

The same two letters are also internet slang with unrelated meanings (on Twitch and in texts). This page is about the Sanskrit syllable.

What does Om mean?

The syllable has no dictionary meaning the way “tree” does. What it means comes from the texts that talk about it, and they say different things.

The shortest and most quoted is the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, twelve verses about nothing else. In R. E. Hume’s 1921 translation it opens: “Om! — This syllable is this whole world. … The past, the present, the future — everything is just the word Om.” It then splits the syllable into three sounds and a fourth part, and pairs each with a state of the self:

The fourth part has no letter. Later writers call it turīya; the Māṇḍūkya just says “the fourth”. In the tool above it is the silence after the hum fades.

Other texts read the three sounds as other triads. Britannica lists the three worlds (earth, atmosphere, heaven), thought, speech and action, the three guṇas and the three Vedas. In the Purāṇas the syllable took on sectarian readings: Vaishnavas, Britannica says, take the three sounds as Vishnu, his wife Shri and the worshipper. These readings come from separate traditions layered on one sound.

There is also a plain meaning. The Chāndogya Upanishad (1.1.8, Müller’s translation) calls Om “a syllable of permission, for whenever we permit anything, we say Om, yes.”

The Om symbol (ॐ), part by part

The sign ॐ is a way of writing the sound in Devanagari, the script of Sanskrit and Hindi. Wikipedia describes it as a cursive ligature: the letter for a (अ) joined with the letter for u (उ), and on top the candrabindu, a crescent with a dot that marks a nasal sound. We drew it from the outline in the Noto Sans Devanagari font:

Britannica dates the written sign as a marker at the start of manuscripts and inscriptions to the 6th century. Other scripts write Om their own way: Bengali has ওঁ without the curl, and Tamil has a separate letter, ௐ.

To type it, the Devanagari Om is Unicode U+0950 (ॐ) and the stand-alone symbol is U+1F549 (🕉). You can copy either one from this page.

How to pronounce Om: om or aum?

In Sanskrit, a and u merge into a long o, so the syllable is said as one vowel, “ō”, not as three. The final m is often not a closed m but a hum of the vowel through the nose. Wikipedia gives the sound as [õː]; Hindi and related languages have [õː] or [oːm].

The spelling “aum” keeps the older form. In Vedic Sanskrit the vowel was still a diphthong, au, and in the old ritual texts it was often stretched to three beats (pluta). Some groups today prefer to sound all three parts. In the Upanishads Om also appears without the stretching.

A simple way to say it:

1. Breathe in through the nose.
2. Open on “o” as in “go”, without the glide into “oo” that English adds.
3. Let the lips close slowly into a hum, “mmm”, that you feel in the face and chest.
4. When the hum fades, stay quiet for a breath or two. That is the fourth part.

Neither “om” nor “aum” is a mistake. If you learned it from a teacher, keep their way.

Where Om comes from

Om begins in Vedic ritual. Wikipedia’s summary of the scholarship calls it an encapsulated form of the chants of the Sāmaveda; in the Brāhmaṇa texts it stands for the whole Veda.

The dates for the Upanishads are Patrick Olivelle’s, as Wikipedia reports them, and they are approximate. For Manu and the Yoga Sūtras we give no date, because we did not check one in a source.

Is Om Hindu or Buddhist? Om in Jainism and Sikhism too

The syllable started in Vedic, that is Hindu, texts, and other religions of India took it up. Britannica says it is “freely used in Buddhist and Jain ritual”.

Because the sign is sacred to all four, how it is worn or printed matters to people. We found no text that forbids anyone to wear it. Many people from these traditions say it is fine when it is treated with respect, and object to Om on shoes, doormats or bathroom items. When unsure, ask someone from the tradition.

How to chant Om, and why classes open and close with it

The old reason for saying Om at the start and the end is in the Laws of Manu (2.74, Bühler): “Let him always pronounce the syllable Om at the beginning and at the end of (a lesson in) the Veda; (for) unless the syllable Om precede (the lesson) will slip away (from him), and unless it follow it will fade away.” Yoga classes kept the habit of marking a beginning and an end.

For a short practice of your own:

• Sit so you can breathe freely. Chant one Om per out-breath, then breathe in quietly through the nose.
• Let each one run as long as the breath does without strain; a short one is fine.
• Use the counter above for a round of 27, 54 or 108. A round of 27 at about eight seconds each takes under four minutes.
• At the end, sit quietly for a minute. That silence is the part the Māṇḍūkya calls the fourth.

The Yoga Sūtras (1.28) pair the repetition with attention to meaning. If you want that, keep one line of the table above in mind while you chant. For more on repetition, malas and the number 108, see what a mantra is.

What research says about chanting Om

On October 23, 2026, a PubMed search for “om chanting”, “OM chant” or “aum chanting” in titles and abstracts gave 25 records. Most are small. Three show the range:

So the evidence is a handful of small studies with mixed designs. It does not show that chanting treats any illness, and no study we found compared it with other slow, humming breaths. The 2020 review by Farías and colleagues found adverse events reported in 55 of 83 meditation studies, so “no side effects” claims about meditation in general are too strong.

Two popular claims have no source we could find. One says it vibrates at 432 Hz; a chanted syllable has whatever pitch your voice gives it (more on the 432 Hz page). The other calls Om “the sound of the universe” as a physical fact; that is a religious statement, and the Māṇḍūkya’s “this whole world” is the text’s own claim.

Om at the start of other mantras

It opens many longer mantras. Wikipedia notes it is “a sacred spiritual incantation made before and during the recitation of spiritual texts”. A few you may meet, each with its own page here:

• The Gayatri mantra is usually said with the opening oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ, which is a later addition to the Rigveda verse.
• Om Mani Padme Hum is the six-syllable mantra of Tibetan Buddhism.
• The Maha Mrityunjaya mantra is a Rigveda verse to Tryambaka; many recordings add Om before it.
• Oṃ namaḥ śivāya, “Obeisance to Shiva”, is on the mantra page, with So’ham and others.

What this page does not promise. Chanting is not a treatment, and we don’t claim it heals, protects, brings luck or changes anything outside you. The tool shows sounds and sources, counts repetitions and plays no audio.

Related: what a mantra is · Gayatri mantra · Om Mani Padme Hum · Maha Mrityunjaya mantra · chakra meditation · meditation for spiritual awakening · self-inquiry