Mantra

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MANTRA

MANTRA is, most concisely, a sacred utterance, incantation, or invocation repeated aloud or in meditation in order to bring about a prescribed effect, such as the calming of the mind or a vision of a deity. The mantra may be with or without conventional meaning, but it contains esoteric or mystical potentialities.

The word mantra is derived from the Sanskrit verbal root man, "to think," and the suffix -tra, indicating instrumentality. Thus the word indicates, literally, a means or instrument of thought. More practically, a mantra is an efficacious sound or utterance. Its translation can be difficult, and is often inexact. In the earliest Indian text, the Ṛgveda, it often had the sense of "invocation," while in later literature it is closer to "incantation," "word(s) of power," "(magic) formula," "sacred hymn," "name of God," or sometimes simply "thought." Because by the twenty-first century the word has entered common English, it is best to leave it untranslated and allow context to determine its meaning.

Mantras were originally, and commonly, used in religions that originated in South Asia, particularly in Hinduism and its Vedic predecessors, as well as in Buddhism. Jainism and Sikhism, two other major South Asian religions, also employ mantras prolifically, but unlike Buddhism and Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism did not contribute much to theorizing mantra.

Mantras can range from an entire verse with a conventional meaning to single syllables in which the meaning is esoteric, multileveled, and all but secret except to the initiated. A common element of mantras is that they are in Sanskrit (though arguments have been made that single-syllable mantras participate in a linguistic encoding beyond any conventional syntactically oriented language). As the word literally indicates, mantras are useful sounds or collocations of sounds. They are useful, powerful, or efficacious for several reasons: first, because the sounds themselves are said to bear their meaning; second, because they are used in ritual, in which the action lies within the sphere of liminality, which renders both words and actions unconventional and therefore (in a manner of thinking) more direct and effective; and third, because they are said to be transformative to the speaker in ways that ordinary language is not. Among the ritual settings in which they are used, mantras function as vehicles to meditation; as verbal accompaniments to offerings to a deity, which are thought to bring about the results of particular desires; and as linguistic or sonic embodiments of deities or other structures.

According to the orthodox Hindu theology of the Pūrvamīmāṃsā, the Vedas are uncreated, they are not the products of human endeavor (apauruṣeya ). This elevates the words of the Vedas to the status of mantra, as their meaning is no longer simply conventional, representative, or marked by syntactic context. They are thus eternal, the products of the extraordinary vision of Vedic seers (ṛṣi, kavi ), their phonetic embodiment equivalent with their meaning and materiality. Thus the Vedic hymns (sūkta, "well-spoken") are regarded as collections of mantras, expressing the true nature and structure of the cosmos. This ideology is the main reason why, in the later Vedic traditions, it became unimportant for those who studied the Vedas to know the meaning of the verses; it was sufficient to memorize the texts—precisely, with fastidious attention to pronunciation and accent. A by-product of this was the rise of the discipline of linguistics in India after about the sixth century bce, particularly in a series of texts called prātiśākhya s dedicated to analysis of the pronunciation of the words in each textual branch (śākhā ) of the Veda.

Several centuries earlier than these treatises on phonetics, however, in the late second millennium bce, the texts on ritual use of the Sāmaveda showed an array of meaningless sounds, or, more accurately, sounds whose meaning was nothing but their sound. These undecipherable sounds, such as bham and bhā, were called stobha s, and they were recited within and surrounding more conventional Samavedic verse mantras. Slightly later, in the middle Vedic period, the centuries around the turn of the first millennium bce, the theologians of the brāhmaṇa texts considered that the whispered utterance (upāṃśu ), particularly of Vedic verses in ritual contexts, was superior to the audible one, and that the best of all was the silent (tuṣṇīm ) or mental (mānasa ) utterance. One such text, the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (5.4.4.13), states that undefined or unmanifest (anirukta ) speech represents the innumerable, the unlimited. This notion of the inseparability of speech and thought was to have a great impact on future ideologies of mantra.

Mantra achieved its highest development in Hindu and Buddhist Tantras, beginning in about the sixth century ce, though many non-Tantric Hindu theologians realized its importance as well. Tantric teaching on mantra revolved around the concept of vāc, both the deity and concept of speech, as well as the female energy principle. It is regarded as the force that animates the male principle, Śiva. The dynamics of vāc embody the threefold process of creation, manifestation, and resorption, a topic that receives considerable attention in the Tantras. The doctrine of speech, then, is essentially the "science of mantra " (mantravidyā, mantra-śāstra ).

The following mantras deserve mention:

The syllable oṃ is regarded as the supreme mantra, containing within its sounds a-u-m the entire articulatory apparatus, and thus the sum total of all sounds and mantras. This mantra is said to have flashed forth in the heart of Brahmā, the creator, while he was in deep meditation, and to have unfolded in the form of Gāyatrī, the mother of the Vedas.
The Gāyatrī Mantra is widely hailed as the most characteristic Vedic mantra —(Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ) Tatsavitur vareṇyaṃ bhargo devasya dhīmahi; Dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayā't: "(Om. Earth! Mid-region! Celestium!) Let us meditate on that excellent radiance of the god Savitṛ; may he impel our visions" (Ṛgveda 3.62.10). This is to be recited a certain number of times (usually 108) two or three times per day by all brahmans initiated into the rites of the "twice-born." It served as a model for a substantial number of other gāyatrīs dedicated to different deities. (Gāyatrī is the name of the metrical pattern consisting of three times eight syllables, with the major division after the first two strophes.)
Agne vratapate vrataṃ cariṣyāmi (Vājasaneyī-Saṃhitā of the Śukla [White] Yajurveda 1.5): "O Agni Lord of Vows, I will observe my vow." This mantra has been prescribed for nearly three millennia for a person or married couple about to undertake a vow of abstinence or penance. Agni is both the sacred fire and the deity of that fire who transmits oblations to the other deities. Thus, this mantra is recited while invoking the deity Agni in the form of fire as witness to the vow.
Oṃ namaḥ śivāya: "Om, obeisance to Śiva." This is the famous "five-syllable mantra " (the oṃ is an addition) to the great Hindu deity Śiva. Large numbers of religious mendicants and lay people alike mutter this mantra hundreds or even thousands of times daily. As with most mantras that mention the name of a deity directly or obliquely, it is believed that the number of times it is repeated is important in "attaining perfection" (siddhi ) in the mantra. This means that after extensive "practice" of a mantra, the aspirant gains the ability to invoke the deity at will or even identify him or herself with that deity. This could mean either merging with the deity or becoming the deity.
The well-known Hare Krishna mantra —Hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare; hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare: "O Hare, O Kṛṣṇa, etc.; O Hara, O Rāma, etc." This example of a mantra that contains only divine names was memorialized by Bengali mystic Śrī Caitanya (1486–1533).
Oṃ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya: "Om, obeisance to the illustrious Vāsudeva (Kṛṣṇa )." This mantra is one of the most commonly recited by Vaiṣṇavas, followers of the different sects dedicated to the worship of Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa.
Oṃ aiṃ hrīm klīṃ chāmuṇḍāyai vicche: "Om Aiṃ Hrīm Klīṃ, to the goddess Chāmuṇḍā, Vicche." This string of monosyllabic or "seed" (bīja ) mantras, with one of the names of the goddess appended, followed by the peculiar bisyllabic seed mantra vicche, is one of the most commonly used mantras in offerings to various forms of the goddess. Bīja mantras are regarded as the phonic representations of different deities, though many of them, such as hrīm and klīṃ, are used for several different deities.
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ: "Om (O heart of Avalokiteś-vara), in the lotus made of jewels." This is the most popular mantra in Tibetan Buddhism. Its recitation is said to lead to rebirth in worlds contained within the hair pores of Avalokiteśvara's body.
Sauḥ. This bīja mantra has received a great deal of attention and analysis in esoteric Śaiva Tantras, where its phonic components are broken down and assigned extreme cosmic importance. Sauḥ is considered the "heart bīja," holding within it the entire cosmos. The great Śaiva philosopher Abhinavagupta (c. 975–1025), in his massive Tantrāloka (4.186–189), breaks this mantra into three parts, s-au-ḥ : s equals being (sat ); au is the three energies of precognitive impulse, cognition, and action; and ḥ (visarga ) is emission, that which is projected outward by the supreme consciousness.

These are by no means the only mantras that deserve discussion; dozens of others are accorded equal or greater status by different sectarian traditions in South Asia and beyond (e.g., the Heart Sūtra is treated as a mantra by millions of Buddhists across East Asia, who recite it constantly because of its supposed esoteric effects). Thus, mantras are, and always have been, an integral and integrative part of Indian and pan-Asian religions, as religion across Asia has been intimately influenced by the use and ideology of mantra in South Asia.

Bibliography

Alper, Harvey, ed. Mantra. Albany, N.Y., 1989. This important book contains ten chapters and an excellent conclusion by leading scholars on the subject of mantra in different branches of Indic religion and philosophy.

Gonda, Jan. "The Indian Mantra." Oriens 16 (1963): 244–297. Reprinted in Gonda's Selected Studies, vol. 4, History of Ancient Indian Religion, pp. 248–301. Leiden, 1975. This article presents the clearest and most detailed picture of mantra in Vedic, and discusses the development of mantra in medieval India.

Padoux, André. Mantras et diagrammes rituels dans l'Hindouisme. Paris, 1986. This collection of articles by leading scholars explicates the relationship between mantras and cosmograms (maṇḍalas and yantras ) in Indian religion, architecture, and medicine.

Padoux, André. Vāc: The Concept of the Word in Selected Hindu Tantras. Translated by Jacques Gontier. Albany, N.Y., 1990. This is the definitive book on the theology and construction of mantras in Hindu Tantra, especially as it is found in the Śaiva texts of Kashmir.

Studholme, Alexander. The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum: A Study of the Karaṇḍavyūha Sūtra. Albany, N.Y., 2002. This is a deep study of the religious context of this Buddhist mantra and the little-known sūtra text in which it is first cele-brated.