Home › Mantras › So Hum Mantra

Mantra · I am He: Isha 16, the Hamsa lines and the breath's Ajapa Gayatri

So Hum Mantra

सोऽहम् ॥

Also known as Soham Mantra

In Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.

A reading of your birth chartBook →

What the So Hum Mantra is

The So Hum mantra, also written Soham or So Ham, and known in reverse as the Hamsa mantra, is the two-syllable saying so'ham, 'I am He', in which sah ('He, That') is joined to aham ('I'). It has no author; printed here are the mantra and the Upanishad passages that state it. Verse 1 is Isha Upanishad 16, from the Shukla Yajurveda, where the worshipper asks the Sun to draw in its blaze and ends 'so'ham asmi', I am He; the same verse recurs in book five of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Verses 2 to 4 come from the Hamsa Upanishad: the student it is taught to, the image of fire hidden in wood and oil in sesame, and the line naming ham as seed, sa as power and so'ham as the pin of the mantra. Verses 5 to 7 are Yogachudamani Upanishad 31 to 33, of the Samaveda, which hears ha in the outgoing breath and sa in the incoming one and calls that unbroken repetition the Ajapa Gayatri.

A teaching from Shiva, retold to Gautama

The Hamsa Upanishad presents itself as a teaching handed down twice. The sage Gautama asks Sanatkumara by what means knowledge of Brahman arises. Sanatkumara replies that, having weighed all the Vedas, he will give the truth that passed between Shiva, the bearer of the Pinaka bow, and Parvati. What follows is the path of the hamsa, the migrating swan or goose that tradition takes as a picture of the self moving through bodies, and the text reserves it for a student who is chaste, calm, self-restrained and devoted to a teacher. After naming the mantra's seer, metre, deity, seed, power and pin, the Upanishad reckons the breaths of a day and night at twenty-one thousand six hundred. It then lists ten inner sounds met in meditation: a faint chini, a fuller chinchini, a bell, a conch, a stringed instrument, cymbals, a flute, the mridanga, the kettledrum and, last, a sound like thunder. It says to leave the ninth behind and hold to the tenth alone. The Isha verse belongs to a much older layer. Adi Shankara, commenting on it, has the speaker say that they do not pray to the Sun as a servant would, because the Person in the solar orb is their own self. The later Yogachudamani carries the same identity into the breath, so that every living being is said to repeat it without effort.

The mantra, in six scripts

DevanagariSanskrit & Hindiसोऽहम् ॥

Tamilஸோஹம் ॥

Teluguసోఽహమ్ ॥

Kannadaಸೋಽಹಮ್ ॥

Malayalamസോഽഹമ് ॥

EnglishRoman transliterationso'ham ||

“"I am He" (I am That). The mantra joins sah, "He, That", with aham, "I"; read in reverse it gives hamsa.”

सोऽहम्: so'ham — I am He (sah, He, + aham, I)
पूषन्नेकर्षे: pūṣannekarṣe — O Pushan, lone seer
यम: yama — Yama, the restrainer
सूर्य: sūrya — O Sun
प्राजापत्य: prājāpatya — son of Prajapati
व्यूह: vyūha — spread apart
रश्मीन्: raśmīn — your rays
समूह: samūha — draw together
तेजः: tejaḥ — your blaze
यत्ते: yatte — that of yours which
रूपं: rūpaṃ — form
कल्याणतमं: kalyāṇatamaṃ — most blessed
तत्ते: tatte — that of yours
पश्यामि: paśyāmi — I see
योऽसावसौ: yo'sāvasau — who is that, yonder
पुरुषः: puruṣaḥ — Person
सोऽहमस्मि: so'hamasmi — I am He

So Hum Mantra lyrics in full

The mantra, then seven passages that state it: one verse from the Isha Upanishad, three from the Hamsa Upanishad and three from the Yogachudamani Upanishad.

All 8 verses, in Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English, each with its meaning. Choose a script:

Download the So Hum Mantra PDFAll 8 verses with their meanings, in Sanskrit. Free to print and keep.

Download PDF

Mantra 1

सोऽहम् ॥

"I am He" (I am That). The mantra joins sah, "He, That", with aham, "I"; read in reverse it gives hamsa.

Verse 1

पूषन्नेकर्षे यम सूर्य प्राजापत्य व्यूह रश्मीन् समूह तेजः ।
यत्ते रूपं कल्याणतमं तत्ते पश्यामि योऽसावसौ पुरुषः सोऽहमस्मि ॥

O Pushan, lone seer, Yama, Sun, son of Prajapati, spread apart your rays and draw in your blaze. That most blessed form of yours, I see it; that Person who is yonder, I am He.

Verse 2

अथ हंसपरमहंसनिर्णयं व्याख्यास्यामः ।
ब्रह्मचारिणे शान्ताय दान्ताय गुरुभक्ताय ।
हंसहंसेति सदा ध्यायन् ॥

Now we shall explain the true nature of the Hamsa and the Paramahamsa, for the student who is chaste, calm, self-restrained and devoted to the teacher, meditating always "hamsa, hamsa".

Verse 3

सर्वेषु देहेषु व्याप्य वर्तते ।
यथा ह्यग्निः काष्ठेषु तिलेषु तैलमिव तं विदित्वा मृत्युमत्येति ॥

It dwells pervading every body, as fire lies hidden in wood and oil in sesame seeds. The verse says that one who knows it goes beyond death.

Verse 4

अथ हंस ऋषिः ।
अव्यक्तगायत्री छन्दः ।
परमहंसो देवता ।
हमिति बीजम् ।
स इति शक्तिः ।
सोऽहमिति कीलकम् ॥

Now: Hamsa is the seer, the unmanifest Gayatri is the metre and the Paramahamsa is the deity. "Ham" is the seed, "sa" is the power, and "so'ham" is the pin that holds the mantra fast.

Verse 5

हकारेण बहिर्याति सकारेण विशेत्पुनः ।
हंसहंसेत्यमुं मन्त्रं जीवो जपति सर्वदा ॥

With the sound "ha" the breath goes out, and with the sound "sa" it comes in again. So the living being repeats this mantra, "hamsa, hamsa", at all times.

Verse 6

षट्शतानि दिवारात्रौ सहस्राण्येकविंशतिः ।
एतत्सङ्ख्यान्वितं मन्त्रं जीवो जपति सर्वदा ॥

Twenty-one thousand six hundred times in a day and a night: with this count the living being keeps repeating the mantra.

Verse 7

अजपानाम गायत्री योगिनां मोक्षदा सदा ।
अस्याः सङ्कल्पमात्रेण सर्वपापैः प्रमुच्यते ॥

This is the Gayatri called Ajapa, the prayer said without speaking; the verse says it always grants liberation to yogis. It says that by merely resolving upon it one is freed from all sins.

The syllable people get wrong

In सोऽहम् (so'ham) the sign ऽ marks the a of aham swallowed into the long o of so, so the word has two syllables, soh-hum, with the short a of the English 'hum'; avoid 'so-a-ham' and avoid the vowel of the English word 'ham'.

Questions

They are the same two sounds in opposite order. So'ham joins sah ('He') with aham ('I'), while hamsa runs aham-sah the other way and is also the word for a swan or goose. The Hamsa Upanishad keeps both in view: in its formula ham is the seed and sa the power, and so'ham is the pin that holds them. Said continuously, 'hamsa hamsa' already contains so'ham at its centre, which is why the two names are used for one mantra.

Ajapa means 'not recited'. Yogachudamani Upanishad 31 to 33, printed here as Verses 5 to 7, says the breath goes out with the sound ha and comes in with sa, so every living being repeats 'hamsa' throughout the day and night without speaking a word. Because the repetition happens by itself, the text calls it the Gayatri named Ajapa. The verse says it grants liberation to yogis, and that merely resolving upon it frees one from all sins. The Dhyanabindu Upanishad has the same lines.

Not in the standard set of four, which takes one saying from an Upanishad of each Veda: Prajnanam Brahma, Aham Brahmasmi, Tattvamasi and Ayamatma Brahma. So'ham asmi comes from Isha Upanishad 16 and makes a closely related claim, but its 'He' is first the Person seen in the Sun, whom the speaker recognises as their own self. Shankara reads it in that way, as identity rather than worship from a distance. The verse does not appear in the Madhyandina recension of the Isha.

Verse 4 is the Hamsa Upanishad's formal statement of the mantra, in the pattern many hymns open with: seer, metre, deity, seed, power and kilaka. The seer is Hamsa, the metre the unmanifest Gayatri and the deity the Paramahamsa. Ham is the seed (bija) and sa the power (shakti). Kilaka means a peg or pin, the part that fastens a mantra so it holds together; here that pin is so'ham itself. Some printings read the seed as aham instead of ham.

Not sure a mantra is enough?

Have your chart read before you decide

Chanting is yours to do, and free. But which deity your situation calls for — and whether a mantra alone is the right response — depends on your chart. Sometimes it is; sometimes it is not.

Brahmashree Shivaaya

Chief Operating Officer & Head of Astrological & Spiritual Solutions

Over 30 years in the Guru–Sishya Parampara, from the age of five
He reads every chart himself — 60 minutes, one to one, never delegated
Charts are read only between sunrise and sunset, following tradition

Book a consultation Ask Nirnaya — free

+91 96295 55442 WhatsApp us support@astrobhava.com

Continue