We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
Two flowing South Asian scripts used as religious emblems, belonging to different religions.
The Om is a single Devanagari syllable used in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain practice. Ik Onkar is a Gurmukhi phrase — the numeral one followed by a letter with a long extended stroke — meaning roughly 'there is one being', and it opens the Sikh scripture. Neither is a variant of the other and they are not related. This catalogue itself carried Ik Onkar as a name of the Om until it was corrected in this sprint, which is a fair measure of how easily the two are conflated.
Both are curving South Asian scripts used as religious emblems, and they belong to different religions.
Drawn from the visual attributes recorded for each symbol. Only traits the two records disagree about are listed.
| Trait | Om (Aum) | Ik Onkar |
|---|---|---|
| Built from | abstract and letter like | letter like and number like |
| Om (Aum) | Ik Onkar | |
|---|---|---|
| Script | Devanagari | Gurmukhi |
| What it is | A syllable, recited and written | A phrase, read as a statement |
| Tradition | Hindu, Buddhist and Jain | Sikh |
| How to tell them apart | A curl above a crescent and a dot, with a hooked lower stroke | Begins with a figure one, then a loop opening into a long horizontal arc |
| Relationship (from Symbolwise's records) | Commonly confused with Ik Onkar — Both are curving South Asian scripts used as religious emblems, and they belong to different religions. | Commonly confused with Om (Aum) — Both are flowing South Asian scripts used as religious emblems, and they belong to different religions. |
Om | Definition, Symbol, Meaning, & Facts
Encyclopaedia Britannica · retrieved 2026-07-27
Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-08-22
Tertiary reference. Cited for the conventional description of a form, its usual name in English and where it is encountered. Where traditions differ about a reading, the record states the disagreement rather than resolving it from here.
Encyclopædia Britannica · retrieved 2026-08-22
General reference written for a non-specialist audience. Cited for identity, form and the broad tradition a symbol belongs to; not cited for doctrinal claims, for which no encyclopedia is the right authority.
Look at the palms. Praying hands are pressed flat against one another with the fingers pointing up. Clasped hands are gripped in a handshake, shown from the side. They carry different readings, and on clasped hands the carved cuffs tell you more than the gesture does — a feminine cuff clasping a masculine one conventionally marks a married couple.
Look for the star. A crescent on its own is the astronomical symbol for the Moon, used in almanacs and calendars, and carries no religious meaning at all. A crescent paired with a star is a distinct symbol widely associated with Islam and appearing on several national flags. A bare crescent on a calendar is not a religious statement.
Count the leaves. Three is the shamrock, Ireland's national emblem; four is a rare mutation taken as a luck token. Only one of them is Irish symbolism, and the other has nothing to do with Ireland.
Count the thumbs. A hamsa is drawn symmetrically, with what reads as a thumb on each side rather than as an anatomically correct hand, and it usually carries an eye or a decorative motif; it is an amulet against the evil eye from Middle Eastern and North African tradition. The ahimsa hand is an ordinary raised palm with a wheel set in the middle of it, and it is a Jain doctrinal statement about non-violence. The resemblance is a coincidence of shape and the traditions share nothing.