OM - the primordial sound - Bamboo?
Very often we hear people say "look at the bambule", especially in front of the stand at the fair or even in the shop.
What happened? What did they see? What does Bambule' mean?
Shaivites (followers of Shiva) use the word Bolenath, sometimes abbreviating it to Bon or Bun Bole when they light a chylum (shape of Indian conical pipe) to honor their lord Shiva or precisely Bolenath (the innocent). Many Westerners, not understanding well what they were saying they transformed it into the word bambule'.
The association of the OM symbol with smoking did the rest and therefore it was transformed into this "new word: "dolls". Name often used by young boys.
Aum, often transliterated into Om, is the most sacred symbol of Hinduism, the primordial sound, synthesis of every ritual prayer or sacred formula.
It is a sign full of a profound symbolic message, it is considered as the primitive divine vibration (Pranava) from which the manifest universe originated; it therefore represents the basis of the metaphysics of all existences, the embrace and fusion of all nature in the Ultimate Truth.
It is used as a prefix (and sometimes as a suffix) in mantras and almost all prayers of the Hindu tradition. It is mistakenly called Bambule' by some Western sympathizers of the Shaivites.
