Pranavam - AUM

ॐ 

ॐ : (AUM) : This is the start of everything, the continuation of anything and the termination of everything.

From what I have gathered from many places and have also analyzed myself I have come to understand that this 'beeja mantra' is in fact a representation of the trinity of life.   The Trinity of Life force consists of Creation (Brahmaa), Continuation/Subsistence /Preservation (Naaraayana), Termination (Shivah).  Any object that has to exist need to go through the above three stages of life.

Trinity

1. Brahma - is from Brihat Manah (Great Mind).  All creations arise from Great Mind - for without mind, there cannot be creation (for that matter not even creativity).  If we need to start to office daily, there requires a mind to start that life-in-office-for-that-day.
2. Naaraayana - is of prevalence and indicates (ayanam) movement/metabolism.  Without metabolism or some sort of activity (karma), there cannot be prevalence or existence. Thus after reaching office, we do some work and that continues until evening before we close for the day.
3. Shivah - is of Goodness & Perfection - it is of Completion / Termination.    End-of-the-day, we complete our work and close it and terminate it after having reached the level of perfection that generates great happiness (Shivam) in ourselves.  Thus termination / completion renders happiness. Shivah is therefore also Kaala-Antaka (Terminator -Antaka of Time - Kaala).  In ancient days, the unit of time was called Yaama.  Yama was therefore the Lord of Time.  Time is also known as Kaala.  Needless to say, that it is Time (Kaala) that determines the Life of anything.

Pranavam

Having understood the Trinities, let us dwell a bit upon the AUM and its origin.  It is said that AUM is the Pranava-Mantram.   Pranava is that of Praana (Life).   Pratyaksha (visible) Praana is closely synonymous with Air.  Thus movement of air indicated breathing and breath indicated life.  The first sound produced by a baby born is just gushing of air outside without any obstruction.  Any sound made without any obstruction is known as a vowel.  Vowels start with अ and prevail through उ to terminate with अं .  It is said that the अ starts in the stomach, उ in the chest/heart and अं closes at the tip of the lips.  The generation of this pranava-mantram doesn't require any teeth or even tongue - even a new born baby, very aged or even a dumb can invoke this mantram.

English Alphabet Similarity

 The English alphabet starts with the letter 'a' or 'alpha'.  The 'a' is similar to that of the head of a cow or bull.  According to Hindu scriptures, the most revered animal is the cow or the bull.  While the Vaishnavaic tradition adores the cow - especially with Sri Krishna closely related to the cow (also called Nandini), the Shaivaite tradition has imbibed the bull (also called Nandi).  The head of the bull/cow is representative of the letter 'alpha'.  It also denotes the first of the zodiac - Aries.  Further, it is easy to see that the letters 'a', 'o' and 'm' constitute the pranavam described above.  If we look at the mouth of the person chanting 'a' (like in father), 'o' (like in omni), and 'm' (like in him),  we can see that the letters are created by the lips and the mouth.  The cry of the baby gives the symbol 'a', with a curve up and a curve down.  The 'o' takes the full circle and the ending 'm' shows a closed mouth with the lips in the form of an 'm'.

Decimal Similarity

The denote ॐ is a combination of अ , उ and अं.   To denote rightly, they are taken of partials of अ , ु  and  ँ .   Interestingly & incidently, the Deva-naagiri (of the Town of Gods) script for the decimal digits have striking similarity in their mirror images of these characters in the numbers Six (६), Eight (८) and Seven (७ ) in their mirror images !!

Hindu-Arabic Numerals

It is well known that the ancient sages of India found the Decimal Number system.  An entire Vedic hymn alone is about counting 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000 and so on indicating that even the Vedic seers observed Decimal number system thousands of years earlier to Romans who founded and used English alphabet viz., I, II, III, IV, V etc., a complicated representation that would turn one mad if he ever had to write beyond one hundred - and still worse had he to find the product of even two digit numbers !!.

It is again interesting to note that the Vedic Decimal System observed a representation of digits with the lowest significant digit written first on the left most side.  In an age when it was more to do with oral calculation than written calculation, this representation not only increased faster response, but also ensured accuracy of calculations.  In otherwords, adding Dwaa-dasi (Dwaa=2, Dasi=10) to Trayo-dasi (Trayo=3, Dasi=10) meant adding the first two digits to get 5 and then the next two tens to get Twenty; thereby giving Pancha-Vimshati (Panch=5, Vimshati=20).   This improved the speed of arithmetic addition for example, in case the numbers were much bigger, as it was possible to add up and arrive at interim results as and when the digits of the second number were orally spelled; without the need to wait until the last digit of the second number is spelt (as in present scenario).

When the Arabs came to India and interacted with the Indians and took along with them the Hindu Decimal System which they learnt from the Hindus of India, they were rightly taught and did rightly learn the system and therefore, wrote in their style of writing which was from right to left instead of the Devanaagiri writing from left to right.   Thus when (Trayo-Dasi) written as 31 indicated thirteen in Devanagiri, 13 indicated thirteen in Arabic as they wrote from right to left.  However, later on, when the Arabs taught Decimal Number system to the English, they insisted upon not changing the order because, by that time, the reason for Hindus permitting Arabs to change the order was not known to (or rather got sublimated when it reached) Arabs  who didn't observe the same flexibility (or catholicity) and wisdom (which the Hindus showed towards them), while transferring the knowledge to the Europeans.   For this reason, when the Europeans  discarded the Roman System and adopted the Hindu-Arabic System,  they adopted what we use today. Interestingly, reminiscence of the same is indicated in the numbers viz. Thirteen (Three+Ten), Fourteen (Four+Ten), Fifteen (Five+Ten), Sixteen (Six+Ten), Seventeen (Seven+Ten), Eighteen (Eight+Ten), Nineteen (Nine+Ten).

I have mentioned above when I wrote about Decimal Similarity, that there are three digits whose mirror images form the Pranava-Mantram ie. ॐ.  Those digits are 7, 8, 6.  I was awe-struck to observe that these digits are considered very sacred and regarded high in the Arab-World as well as in India by the Muslims who consider this number to be the number of God !!  It is not possible to assume that the mirroring of digits is by coincidence and un-intentional, particularly in the light of the fact that the Islamic culture is greatly a culture of Mirror-Images!.  This is because, we will find strange rules in Islamic culture like, No mustache or Hair on the Head, but hair only on the beard; write from right-to-left instead of the commonly found left-to-right.   Thus 786 is but a representation of ॐ

The Star

You would have observed the Star symbol used in the Israeli national flag.  Insert the ॐ (Aum) inside a triangle and you will find that in its mirror image form, the three sides of the triangle will point to the letters Six & Eight in the base and Seven at the top. A mirror image of that triangle drawn upside down (ie. with the base on top), would correspondingly indicate the  Three (३) as mirror of Six (६), Four (४) as mirror to Seven (७), and Two (२ ) as mirror to Eight (८). And 324 (३२४) is ॐ in the left to right perspective, that we usually use.

The Rice

Rice is a very important element in any Vedic ritual.  We have been taught that the Aryans followed or rather brought the Vedic religion to India when they came and conquered India.  We are also taught that the Dravidians who were the aboriginals of India were driven out by Aryans so that they settled down South.  However, it is also interesting to note that while all Vedic rituals needed rice as an important material, it is the Dravidians who always even today are fully dependant on rice.  The North Indians always depended more on wheat for their staple food.  Does it mean that the Vedic religion actually belonged to the Dravidians and that, they were the actual followers of that religion?