Abstract

Among the different cultural hierarchies of sensory perception, Hindu India’s strong phonocentrism stands out. Sound and sonality enjoy exceptional cultural significance since ancient times until the present day. The contribution argues that this emphasis on sound has had distinct influence on collective and individual consciousness building, and on practices, world view, and cosmology. The essay’s major focus is the Nāda-Brahman, literally “Sound-Brahman” or “Sonic Absolute”, and its history. This powerful sonic conception of ultimate being received little research so far. Even within academia it was hardly acknowledged that the term is not a very ancient one but made its first appearance only in the thirteenth century. The essay investigates the Nāda-Brahman’s little known impressive musicological beginnings and its history of transformation – from musical sound to resonances and occult interior sounds, including the Radhasoami’s eternal “sound current”. It is shown that it was at the same time a history of different forms of sonic consciousness and sonic cosmology, which, however, share a spiritual sensuality that differs from the acosmic pure consciousness of Advaita-Vedānta, the philosophical tradition of India, which became best known in the West as a marker of Indian spirituality.