The Sri-Yantra Mandala is the image of the OM mantra, the primordial Hindu sound of creation. When OM is intoned into a tonoscope, it first produces a circle. As the tone is completed, the circle is filled sequentially with concentric squares, triangles and finally, as the "mmm" dies away, the Sri Yantra.
A tonoscope is an appliance that turns sounds into patterns. There is a science called Cymatics that is about the translation of sound vibrations into visible patterns. It is usually done by vibrating a fine powder or a liquid on a plate connected to a speaker. The images that can be produced with different frequencies are complex and beautiful and often look like mandalas.
Dr. Hans Jenny, a pioneer in the field of cymatics, the study of the interrelation-ship between energy and matter, conducted a series of experiments on the Hindu mantra “OM”, utilizing a tonoscope which is a device that transforms sounds into their visual representations on a screen. Dr Jenny found that when “OM” was correctly intoned into a tonoscope, a circle appeared which is then filled in with concentric squares and triangles, finally producing, as the last traces of the ‘M’ disappear from the screen, the core structure of the Sri Chakra.
