नादBhajan

The World Began as Sound

The first beat of Śiva’s ḍamaru is called nāda — the sound from which creation unfolds. The chants here were made for this site.

ॐ नमः शिवाय
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The chants

Let it follow you

Send this chant afar and it keeps playing softly as you read the rest of the site — like a temple heard from down the valley. It steps back on its own when a story is read aloud.

मूलThe words it is built on

The Pañcākṣara — five syllables

ॐ नमः शिवाय

oṃ namaḥ śivāya

Salutation to Śiva, the Auspicious. Na-maḥ-śi-vā-ya: five syllables that tradition reads as the five elements, and the whole of creation bowing to its source.

The words first appear in the Śrī Rudram of the Yajurveda. Read the verse, its meaning and its source →

Original music by Om Namah Shivay.