‘AUM’ and the Sanskrit Alphabet

Thanks for V. Agarwal for the below text.

‘AUM’ and the Sanskrit Alphabet: The alphabet of Hindu languages starts with the letter ‘A’, followed by all the vowels. Then, we have a set of 25 consonants called ‘contact consonants’ (sparsha vyanjana – because they are uttered by the contact of the tongue, teeth, lips, palate etc.) that end with the letter ‘M’ whose utterance involves a complete contact of the two lips. The letter ‘M’ itself is followed by eight (8) other consonants that are uttered from within (ya, ra, la, va, sha, shha, sa, ha) and are not pronounced by the contact of the tongue, teeth or the lips. So, in short, recitation of ‘AUM’ represents the entire alphabet from ‘A’ (the first vowel) till ‘M’ (the last ‘contact’ consonant), and the silence after its utterance stands for the 8 interior consonants. This parallelism between the Hindu alphabet symbolizes that Om (or Brahman) encompasses all that can be described by the vowels and consonants, and It is also the silence within us and beyond these letters. This is perhaps beautifully stated in the Gita in the following words:

Krishna said to Arjuna: “I am the Atman present in the heart of all creatures. And I am also the beginning, the middle and the end of all things.” Gita 10.20

Images of the Sanskrit Akshara Mala (Garland of Alphabets)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Sanskrit_alphabet_el.png