Walk into any Hindu home and you will meet a small vocabulary of signs before anyone says a word. A swastika in turmeric on the doorframe. An Om painted above the shrine. A brass pot crowned with mango leaves and a coconut. A string of rough brown beads around a grandfather's neck, and a streak of red or white on a forehead. None of these is decoration. Each is a compressed teaching, and this article walks through the most common of them.
Om: the sound before all sounds
Om (also written Aum) is the most sacred syllable in Hinduism. The Mandukya Upanishad is devoted entirely to it:
Om: this syllable is all this. All that is past, present and future is Om; and whatever lies beyond the three times, that too is Om.
The Upanishad breaks the syllable into three sounds and a silence. A is the waking state, U the dreaming state, M deep dreamless sleep. The silence that follows, when the lips close and the hum fades, is the fourth, turiya: the pure awareness that underlies all three.
The written form in Devanagari carries the same teaching. The three curves stand for waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Above them sits a crescent, maya, the veil of appearances, and above that a dot, the bindu, which is turiya. The dot is held apart from the curves by the crescent: the absolute is near, but something must be lifted away before it is seen.
The swastika: a wish for well-being
The word swastika comes from Sanskrit su (good) and asti (it is), with the suffix ka: "that which brings well-being". It is among the oldest symbols in India, found on Indus Valley seals and held sacred by Jains and Buddhists as well. Hindus draw it in vermilion or turmeric on thresholds, on new account books at Diwali, on the kalash at a puja and on wedding invitations.
Its four arms are read as the four directions, the four Vedas, the four aims of life (dharma, artha, kama, moksha) or the four ages of the world; the centre is the still point around which everything turns. It is associated with Ganesha and with Surya, the sun, which is why the arms usually turn to the right, following the sun's course.
Many readers outside India know a different image: the black, tilted hooked cross adopted by the Nazi party in the twentieth century. That emblem was borrowed, by a European movement, from a word and a sign that were never its own, and its history of hatred has nothing to do with the Hindu swastika. The two are usually easy to tell apart: the Hindu form sits square, is drawn in auspicious red, yellow or orange, and almost always has four dots in its quarters. If you ever have to explain this to a neighbour or a school, say it gently: the symbol on your doorstep is a prayer for everyone's welfare, including theirs.
Tilak and bindi: marks on the forehead
A tilak (or tilaka) is a mark on the forehead made with sandalwood paste, sacred ash, vermilion or clay. It is placed on the spot between the eyebrows that yoga calls the ajna chakra, the seat of inner vision, and it says something about which path its wearer follows.
- Vaishnava devotees, who worship Vishnu and his avatars, wear the urdhva pundra: two vertical lines of white clay (gopi chandan) rising from the bridge of the nose in a U shape, often with a central line in red or yellow. The U is read as the footprint of Vishnu and the central line as Lakshmi. The exact design differs by lineage.
- Shaiva devotees wear the tripundra: three horizontal lines of vibhuti, ash from the sacred fire, often with a dot of red in the middle. The three lines are read as the three gunas, the qualities of nature, and the ash itself is a reminder that everything made will one day be dust.
- Shakta devotees, who worship the Goddess, use kumkum, red vermilion, as a dot or a vertical streak.
The bindi (from bindu, "drop" or "point") is the round mark worn by women. Traditionally a red bindi marked a married woman; today it is worn as devotion, identity or ornament by women of every age, though in most communities a widow still does not wear red.
Tilak is also given, not only worn: by a priest at the end of a puja, by a sister to her brother at Raksha Bandhan, by a host to a guest at the door. In each case the gesture says: you are blessed, you are welcome, you are seen.
Rudraksha: the tears of Shiva
The rudraksha is the dried seed of a tree of the Himalayan foothills. Its name means "Rudra's tear", Rudra being an ancient name of Shiva. The Shiva Purana tells that Shiva sat in meditation for a vast span of time for the welfare of the world. When at last he opened his eyes, tears of compassion fell to the earth, and where they landed, rudraksha trees grew.
Each bead has natural grooves running from top to bottom that divide it into segments called mukhis, "faces". Five-faced beads are by far the most common and make up most rosaries; one-faced beads are rare and treasured; other counts, up to twenty-one, are matched in tradition to particular deities and purposes. A mala (rosary) of 108 beads, with one extra bead called the meru to mark the start, is used for japa, the repetition of a mantra. The fingers move bead by bead, the lips move with the name, and the mind, for a while, has somewhere to rest.
Rudraksha is worn above all by Shaivas; Vaishnavas prefer tulsi wood.
Kalash, conch and lotus
The kalash (or kalasha) is the brass, copper or clay pot of water that sits at the centre of nearly every puja. Its mouth is ringed with mango leaves, a coconut rests on top, a red thread is tied around its neck and a swastika is drawn on its belly. Water is the source of life, the leaves are growth, the coconut is the fruit of the whole; together they are the universe held in a vessel, into which the gods are invited for the duration of the ritual. A full pot at the door is also the traditional welcome for a guest.
The conch (shankha) is blown to begin a puja and to greet the arati. Its sound is held to be a form of Om, and in the hand of Vishnu it is one of his four emblems, named Panchajanya when Krishna holds it. The first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita describes the two armies sounding their conches before the battle, Panchajanya among them.
The lotus (padma or kamala) rises from mud and water with its petals touched by neither. Lakshmi stands on it, Brahma is born from it, and the Gita says that a person who acts without attachment is untouched by sin "as a lotus leaf is untouched by water". It is the seat of nearly every deity.
Bringing it home
Knowing a symbol's meaning helps it speak back.
- The next time you chant Om, give full length to the silence at the end. That silence is the point.
- Draw the swastika yourself at Diwali, slowly, and say its meaning aloud to whoever is watching: may all be well.
- Keep a mala within reach of wherever you sit most; turning a few beads before a hard conversation is an old way to steady the mind.
Symbols are patient. They wait on doorframes and foreheads until someone looks properly, and then they begin to teach.