Explaining Mantras

Explaining Mantras PDF

Author: Robert A. Yelle

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-03-01

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1135888175

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Explaining Mantras explores the intersection of poetry and magic in the mantras or verbal formulas of Hindu Tantra. The author reveals how mantras work in light of both the esoteric tradition of Tantra and a general semiotic theory of ritual. Mantras mimic the act of sexual reproduction and the cosmic cycle of creation and destruction. A mantra that imitates creation is believed to be more creative and effective in producing a real-world result. Drawing from linguistics, semiotics, anthropology, and philosophy, as well as the history of religions, the author argues that mantras and other ritual discourses use rhetorical devices, including imitation, to construct the persuasive illusion of a natural language, one with a direct and immediate connection to reality. This vital relation between poetry and ritual has been neglected in many current theories of religion. Explaining Mantras combines the study of ancient Tantric rituals with the latest theories in the human sciences, and will be of interest to a broad range of readers.

Explaining Mantras

Explaining Mantras PDF

Author: Robert A. Yelle

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-03

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1135888183

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Mantra

Mantra PDF

Author: Harvey P. Alper

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1989-01-01

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780887065996

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book explicates the origin, nature, function, and significance of mantras within the bounds of the Hindu tradition. It explores the use of mantras in the Vedic age, in Saivism and Vaisnavism, in Tantra, and in Ayurvedic medicine.

Healing Mantras

Healing Mantras PDF

Author: Thomas Ashley-Farrand

Publisher: Wellspring/Ballantine

Published: 2008-12-24

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0307556611

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"Sound is more than simply a medium of artistic expression. Sound has practical and powerful applications in the real world." Mantras, or simple chants, are short phrases packed with energy and intention--specifically designed to generate powerful sound waves that promote healing, insight, creativity, and spiritual growth. Healing Mantras is the practical, how-to guide that makes the strengths and benefits of mantras available to everyone. The transformative power of sound has been passed down to the present from the sages of India, the classical scientists of ancient Greece, and the medieval monks of Europe. Mantras, sounds, and chants have inspired, comforted, and mended the lives of individuals, religious orders, and even entire cultures. Even though the science and discipline of chanting and formal prayer are practiced in every religion around the world, this is the first time that ancient Sanskrit mantras have been explained and adapted to Western needs. One of the few Western experts in Hindu and Buddhist mantras, Thomas Ashley-Farrand has practiced mantra-based spiritual disciplines for twenty-five years. In this illuminating book, he explains how and why mantras work and shows how to use them for everything from controlling habits to overcoming fear, from curing specific ailments to finding inner peace. In each of the more than fifty mantras, all translated from the original Sanskrit, Ashley-Farrand unlocks the power of every word, explains its appropriate application, and tells you how to pronounce it in easy-to-follow phonetic symbols. Inside, you'll find mantras for - Health - Worldly Success - Habit Control - Protection - Grief - Anger - Controlling Fear - Personal Attraction - Wisdom - Concentration and Mental Clarity - Healing Life Issues - and more! These mantras can be repeated aloud or in silence and can be used by people of any religion or spiritual practice, "as you wash dishes, as you drive on the freeway, as you meditate, or as you cook." Sound can help and sound can heal, and Healing Mantras now makes this sound medicine available to everyone.

Shakti Mantras

Shakti Mantras PDF

Author: Thomas Ashley-Farrand

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2009-08-05

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0307490831

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

SHAKTI MANTRAS Tapping into the Great Goddess Energy Within • Enhance your spiritual gifts • Lighten your karmic burden • Improve your health and increase prosperity • Live in harmony with the universe Now, with Shakti Mantras, we can all benefit from this ancient practice. Thomas Ashley-Farrand, a Vedic priest, is an American expert in the intricacies of Sanskrit mantra. With nearly thirty years and thousands of hours of experience in chanting, he is supremely well-equipped to write the first book that teaches women (and men as well) to tap into the dynamic feminine energy of love in all its manifestations. By sharing enchanting Hindu myths and astonishing true stories from his own practice, Ashley-Farrand helps us to understand the real power that this age-old art awakens in those who perform it. Through dozens of actual mantras–each one presented with phonetic spelling for easy pronunciation and recommendations for specific applications–he enables us to increase our “shakti” (power) and use it to solve problems, ensure abundance, create health and well-being, summon protection, and invoke personal and universal peace. Whether you’re new to chanting or an old hand, Shakti Mantras will take you places you’ve never been before . . . and measurably enrich your life.

Living Mantra

Living Mantra PDF

Author: Mani Rao

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-09-15

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 3319963910

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Living Mantra is an anthropology of mantra-experience among Hindu-tantric practitioners. In ancient Indian doctrine and legends, mantras perceived by rishis (seers) invoke deities and have transformative powers. Adopting a methodology that combines scholarship and practice, Mani Rao discovers a continuing tradition of visionaries (rishis/seers) and revelations in south India’s Andhra-Telangana. Both deeply researched and replete with fascinating narratives, the book reformulates the poetics of mantra-practice as it probes practical questions. Can one know if a vision is real or imagined? Is vision visual? Are deity-visions mediated by culture? If mantras are effective, what is the role of devotion? Are mantras language? Living Mantra interrogates not only theoretical questions, but also those a practitioner would ask: how does one choose a deity, for example, or what might bind one to a guru? Rao breaks fresh ground in redirecting attention to the moments that precede systematization and canon-formation, showing how authoritative sources are formed.

Tantric Mantras

Tantric Mantras PDF

Author: Andre Padoux

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-05-19

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1136707565

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Providing a systematic and complete overview of the highest scholarly quality on Tantric mantras in Hinduism, this book presents a summary on the nature of Tantric mantras, their phonetic aspect, structure and classifications. Additionally, it explains the metaphysical-theological nature of Tantric mantras and gives an introduction to their beliefs and practices. In individual chapters, Andre Padoux discusses the extraction and examination of mantras, certain characteristics such as their "perfect nature" and their imperfections, and he describes certain mantrics practices. For the first time, Andre Padoux' work on Tantric mantras is made accessible to an English-speaking readership. This book will be of great interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Theology, Indology, South Asian Studies, and Asian Religion.

The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Eastern and Western Thought

The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Eastern and Western Thought PDF

Author: Harold Coward

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0791478858

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

How perfectible is human nature as understood in Eastern and Western philosophy, psychology, and religion? Harold Coward examines some of the very different answers to this question. He poses that in Western thought, including philosophy, psychology, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, human nature is often understood as finite, flawed, and not perfectible—in religion requiring God's grace and the afterlife to reach the goal. By contrast, Eastern thought arising in India frequently sees human nature to be perfectible and presumes that we will be reborn until we realize the goal—the various yoga psychologies, philosophies, and religions of Hinduism and Buddhism being the paths by which one may perfect oneself and realize release from rebirth. Coward uses the striking differences in the assessment of how perfectible human nature is as the comparative focus for this book.