ancient Vedic notions and rites, however, have survived as elements, sometimes
very vital ones, of Pura ̄n.ic, then Tantric, and even modern Hinduism: and
among these, in particular, are the Vedic notions and speculations on the divine
nature and power of the Word, especially in its mantric aspect.^1 Mantras have
never ceased to be regarded as of divine origin and nature, as endowed with
supernatural powers, and as ritually effective for evoking deities or for putting
their user in touch with a deity or even identifying him/her with the deity.
Mantras may be generally described as sentences, words, or syllables of super-
human origin, eternal, used to evoke deities or supernatural powers and also to
put in touch or identify their users with these deities or powers. They are thought
of as able, when uttered according to certain precise rules, to realize the inten-
tional thought they embody and/or to accomplish different tasks or actions.
These characteristics are variously emphasized in different rituals and at differ-
ent times. The function of praising a deity or beseeching it to accept or be pleased
with the gifts or oblations offered is stressed in Vedism, whereas that of evoca-
tion or identification, or of accomplishing some religious or magic task, is more
prominent in the Paura ̄n.ic and still more in the Tantric context. Whatever
the period, however, an essential trait of mantras is and has always been that
their nature is that of the uttered, the spoken, or rather the speaking word
(va ̄c vadantı ̄), transmitted orally, not in writing.^2 Even when they are poems or
hymns, they are not Scripture.
Descriptions of the yogic meditative uses of mantras, mysticolinguistic specu-
lations on their nature, phonetic structure, symbolic values and powers are to
be found in the older (“Vedic”) Upanis.ads and in the Bra ̄hman.as.^3 For instance,
in the Jaiminı ̄ya Upanis.ad Bra ̄hman.a, the god Praja ̄pati creates the sky, the inter-
mediate space, and the earth by means of the three vya ̄hr.tis,bhuh.bhuvah.svah.,
the essence of his speech being OM.. The Cha ̄ndogya Upanis.ad tells the same
mythic tale and adds “the sound OM.is the whole universe.” “OM.isBrahman,”
says the Taittirı ̄ya Upanis.ad. The divine nature and power of the mantra OM.is
extolled in other older Upanis.ads, too: this extolling ofOM. as condensing and
encapsulating in one syllable the totality of the Vedas (i.e., knowledge) is inter-
esting in that it shows that, from Vedic times, brief, condensed utterances have
been given primacy over extended, discursive ones, a concept to be found later
in the tantricbı ̄jamantras.Vedic sources also show the breaking up ofOM.into
its constituent phonemes, A,O,M., which are then correlated with different
triads: the three Vedas, three parts of the cosmos, three vital breaths, and so
forth, a trait later to be found in the tantric mantras ́a ̄stra. Also worth mention-
ing here is the Maitrı ̄ Upanis.ad (one of the latest of the ancient Upanis.ads),
which says that OM. is the essence of everything in the human heart, that
meditation on Brahman rests eternally upon it, and that when stirred up it rises
to the throat as an atom of sound, then reaches the tip of the tongue, finally
flowing out as speech. The person who sees all this, the Upanis.ad adds, sees only
the Absolute and is freed from death and suffering: this mental and bodily
process does not differ much from later tantric mantrayoga practices. The origin
of such anthropocosmic concepts, as well as that of a number of other mantric
480 andré padoux