Aksara or Akshara in Sanskrit means, as a noun - letter, syllable, letter of alphabet, final beatitude religious austerity, sound, sacrifice, water, alphabet, syllable Aum, vowel, word or mark etched on metal or stone, and as an adjective – fixed, imperishable, unalterable, immutable.

In the Brahmanas and the Upanishads, Aksara means syllable and letter Aum, the Ekaksara, and imperishable, indestructible, immutable, undying, un-decaying, all in reference to the individual self and the Supreme Self, Brahman.

Aksara is the unit of graphemic symbols in the Indian writing system which system having the knowledge of phonemes (consonants and vowels), syllables and words before adopting the Brahmi Script had opted for Aksara. Aksara is more a syllable-like unit for writing which requires the knowledge of syllables and the matra i.e. the measure of prosadic marking. In writing it stands for CV, CVV, CCV, CCVV, CCCV, CCCVV, V and VV where "C" stands for consonant, "V" for vowel and ""VV"" for very long vowel. It is a sub-syllabic representation which stands for onset, onset plus nucleus and nucleus alone, the coda part of a syllable goes into the next aksara in a word. Its nature favours the phonological mediation i.e. the non-lexical strategy of reading, which is the beginning with the Visual Analysis System and proceeding to the Aksara Recognition System and then to the Aksara sound Conversion System and the Phonological Assembly System before ending with the Response Buffer prior to reading aloud.^[1]

As part of basic instructions comprising of Shiksha and Sanskrit grammar, it is explained that among the Word-entities, both, Aksara and Brahman stand out as especially important because both refer to a special form of ritual word. In the Brahmanas and the Upanishads both come to mean the Absolute. The Aksara as the syllable (Aum) acquires the meaning imperishable and in the Rig Veda it is directly linked with Rta which is the order of the cosmos and sacrifice when it pervades the cosmos because it is the element upon which the ritual chants are built. From the Rig Veda it is learnt that the origin of Aksara, the syllable, is to be found in the domain of the word (Rig Veda I.55.1) as the source of inspiration (Rig Veda I.34.4 & VII.36.7) and yields for those participating in the Vedic rites(Rig Veda VII.1.14 & VII.15.9). It is the recipient of power and the dignity of the sacred word in a condensated and intensified degree, and as the essence and embryo of speech receives, more than the word itself the signification of transcendent Brahman.^[2]

According to the adherents of the Smrtis, the practitioners of the Bhakti yoga, Aksara means one who is present everywhere, denotes the name of Shiva and Vishnu, and also that of Brahman, literally it means imperishable, indestructible. And, because it is the term applied to Aum it is called the Aksara, the symbol of God who is the lord of all created things. It is a descriptive synonym of Brahman (Bhagavad Gita VIII.3) who is said to have arisen from Aksara (Bhagavad Gita III.15).^[3]

With regard to Vallabha’s view of Aum it is said that Aksara itself is imperishable and appears as souls endowed with Sat and Chit but not as Ananda.^[4] For Vallabha, Ananda, which is the first manifestation of God, is the actualisation of the absolute identity and selfness, whereas the second manifestation of God is the Aksara, the impersonal ground from which all determinations arise because it is the substratum of all finite forms that pre-exist but issue forth from it which though by itself is the intermediate form that lacks plenitude.^[5]

The Mandukya Upanishad partitions the symbol Aum in three different morae and adds a fourth mora-less instructing that the mora-less part alone is ultimately real and not the other three representing "wakefulness", "dream" and the "sleep" states of consciousness. The mora-less part of Aum has correspondence with the fourth dimension of metaphysics, the Atman.^[6]

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