The Social Lives of Mantras From Ancient India to the Contemporary West

<p><b>Challenging the Orientalist exoticisation of mantras and their restriction to ‘Eastern religions’, Joseph L. Kimmel traces the understanding, practice, and purposes of mantras across a variety of historical and cultural contexts, from early Christianity to the present day</b>. This comparative approach reveals the richness and versatility of this ancient tradition, offering an illuminating account of its significance and function. Moreover, this study specifically underscores mantras’ enduring relationality: how mantras function as crucial mediators of relationships between humans and deities, bodhisattvas, and other exalted nonhumans. As such, this volume contributes to long-standing debates around mantras’ meaningfulness by demonstrating how they persistently communicate relational meaning and influence human–nonhuman relationships.<br><br> Beginning with the origins of Indic mantras in ancient Vedic traditions and their reinterpretation along Tantric Hindu and Buddhist lines, this book illuminates how mantric-like speech has also characterised Christian practices in understudied ways, from early Christians’ invocations of Jesus to medieval and contemporary iterations of the Orthodox ‘Jesus-prayer’.<br><br> This volume also analyses how mantric relationality has been embraced in so-called ‘New Age’ traditions through the recitation of contemporary ‘manifestation’ mantras. By comparing such mantras with those of other religious traditions, this work advances a compelling argument for mantras’ enduring relevance, widespread appeal and ongoing, relational significance as tools of ritual communication between humans and exalted nonhumans.</p>