What question did this study set out to answer?

The research aims to uncover the acoustic phenomena accompanying the syllable AUM, focusing on its fourth element.

April 11, 2026Open Access

Beyond AUM: The Acoustics of the Fourth Element

Key Points

The research aims to uncover the acoustic phenomena accompanying the syllable AUM, focusing on its fourth element.
Performed a sustained vocalization of AUM to analyze acoustic properties.
Utilized VoceVista Video for spectrographic observation.
Examined changes in formant structures during the nasal murmur phase.
Identified an increase in F2 from ≈600 Hz to ≈2640 Hz and F3 from ≈2500 Hz to ≈3700 Hz.
Noted the emergence of a steady spectral peak at ≈1800 Hz during the close of lips.
Differentiated two variants of /m/: an inert version and a dynamic version linked to traditional concepts of āhata/anāhata.

Abstract

The Vedic syllable AUM is phonetically notated with three segments — A, U, M — but the Indian tradition has insisted, for over two millennia, that the syllable contains a fourth element beyond the three audible phonemes: the turīya of the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, the bindu of the visual symbol ॐ, the anāhata nāda (“unstruck sound”) of the Yoga Upaniṣads. This paper reports a spectrographic observation made during the sustained nasal murmur /m/ of AUM, performed by the author as a single sustained vocalisation on one exhalation (f0 ≈ 110 Hz) and analysed with VoceVista Video. When the tongue body advances slowly from its retracted /u/ position toward firm contact with the palate, the /m/ phase is not acoustically inert: the spectrogram reveals a continuous reorganisation of the upper formant structure in which F2 rises from ≈600 Hz to ≈2640 Hz (the 24th harmonic, a perfect fifth above the fundamental in just intonation), F3 rises from ≈2500 Hz to ≈3700 Hz, and the nasal anti-resonance, a travelling band of spectral silence, rises from ≈500 Hz to ≈3000 Hz. At the moment the lips close, a fourth, steady spectral peak appears at ≈1800 Hz and persists throughout, independent of tongue motion, consistent with N3, the third resonance of the pharyngo-nasal tube (Fujimura 1962; Stevens 1998). The rising anti-resonance and the rising F2 converge precisely at this location at approximately 1800 Hz, producing a brief deep attenuation of F2 before it recovers and continues upward. The paper distinguishes two recorded variants of sustained /m/: an inert /m/ with stationary anti-resonance, and a living /m/ with the three-trajectory reorganisation described above. The contrast is offered, with appropriate humility, as an acoustic analogue of what the Indian tradition calls the āhata/anāhata distinction, and the living trajectory is offered as a possible acoustic correlate, at the threshold of what the tradition has long described as the fourth element of AUM. Keywords: AUM, OM, formant trajectory, nasal anti-resonance, pole–zero crossing, N3 nasal formant, vocal tract acoustics, anāhata nāda, turīya, bindu, spectrographic analysis, VoceVista, pneumatic sweep

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