Om - in Buddhism

In Buddhism

Buddhists place om at the beginning of their Vidya-Sadaksari ("om mani padme hum") as well in as most other mantras and dharanis. Moreover, as a seed syllable (a bija mantra) aum is considered holy in Esoteric Buddhism.

In Buddhist texts of East Asian provenance, om is often written as the Chinese character 唵 (pinyin ǎn) or 嗡 (pinyin wēng).

A key distinction should be made here between Buddhism as it arose in Nepal, and Buddhism after the migration of the teachings to Tibet under the guidance of Padmasambhava. In its original form, Buddhism in Nepal was characterized mainly by types of mindfulness meditation and did not involve the chanting of om or of mantras. Tibetan Buddhism, with heavy Hindu influence and merger with Bon Shamanism, is now characterized by the AH bija, which can be roughly translated as representing pure spirit (the fifth in the Tibetan system of elements).

As to its precise graphic form, the Vedic or Indian om is what most Westerners are used to, and the Tibetan alphabet om is less widespread in popular culture. Even Tibetan handicrafts made in India tend to use the Nepali-script om for recognizability.