Akshara

Aksara (also akshara, Devanagari अक्षर, IAST akṣara) is a Sanskrit term translating to "imperishable, indestructible, fixed, immutable" (i.e. from a- "not" and kṣar- "melt away, perish").

It has two main fields of application, in Sanskrit grammatical tradition (śikṣā) and in Vedanta philosophy. The uniting aspect of these uses is the mystical view of language, or shabda, in Hindu tradition, and especially the notion of the syllable as a kind of immutable (or "atomic") substance of both language and truth, most prominently, of course, the mystical syllable Aum, which is given the name of ekākṣara (i.e. eka-akṣara), which can be translated as both "the sole imperishable thing" and as "a single syllable". In the explicitly monotheistic tradition of Bhakti yoga, both akṣara and aum become seen as a symbol or name of God.

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 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 may be interpreted in stages such as 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.

As part of basic instructions 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.

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