brahmanic orthodoxy. These paura ̄n.ic mantras – “Vedic” in the sense that they
were not Tantric – were used in the liturgy rather than to obtain supernatural
rewards. They usually consisted in the name of the deity or of the supernatural
entity being invoked or worshipped, in the dative case, preceded by OM.and fol-
lowed by the ancient liturgical formula namah., meaning hail or obedience to, or
by sva ̄ha ̄, the exclamation used in making oblations. For instance, S ́iva’s mantra
isOM. S ́IVA ̄YA NAMAH., or OM. NAMAH.S ́IVA ̄YA.
It is often said that deities are to be worshipped with their own special mantra,
tattatmantren.a. Whatever the cult, be it the thrice-daily invocation prayer, the
sandhya, or the ritual devotional worship, the pu ̄ja ̄, the rite always consists in the
utterance (ucca ̄ra) or repetition (japa) of mantras, each of which plays an effec-
tive, operative role in the ritual process, the outwardly visible actions of the offi-
ciant accompanying, confirming the action of the mantras rather than being
themselves effective. The importance of the mantras even in the nontantric pu ̄ja ̄,
is also underlined by the fact that the worship of a deity normally ends with a
japa, the recitation of that deity’s mantra. We may note here that the mantra of
a deity is not the same thing as that deity’s name. But since Vedic times lists of
names of deities have existed, the recitation of which was prescribed and con-
sidered as ritually efficacious or as salvific. The S ́atarudrı ̄ya, The Thousand
[names] of Rudra, of the Yajurveda (4.5), is one of the oldest of these lists.
Hinduism proposes a large number ofna ̄mastotra, hymns of praise to the Name,
orsahasrana ̄ma, Thousand Names of deities, and there are cases where the name
or names of a deity is/are to be uttered like, and with the same expected effects
as, a mantra.^5 The S ́ivapura ̄n.a, for instance, contains a list of a thousand names
of S ́iva and enumerates the benefits resulting from its recitation. It also pre-
scribes the recitation of “multiple na ̄mamantras,” one of which consists of eight
names of S ́iva preceded by s ́rı ̄.For this Pura ̄n.a, however, the supreme mantra is
OM., from which, this text says, all the Vedas were born. The devotional use of
suchstotra,stuti, or stava(or nowadays ofkirtanorbhajan, devotional singing of
divine names) is and has certainly always been very widespread. This practice is
not to be confused with the japaof mantras, though it too rests on the convic-
tion that certain sacred words have a salvific power.
In theory, Vedic mantras cannot be used by, or for, others than male members
of the three “twice-born” (dvija) classes, a very small minority of Hindus. Hence
the importance of non-Vedic mantras, which are all the more important because
they are the majority of those used in all sectarian cults – that is, S ́aiva, Vais.n.ava,
and “S ́a ̄kta,” domestic or public (temple) cults; in other words, the rites
performed, or attended by, almost the whole Hindu community for the last
thousand years of Indian history. In the ritual performed in such temples (whose
priests are normally brahmins, though the rites are either Tantric or tantricized),
both Vedic and non-Vedic (often Tantric) mantras are used. Hindu-Tantric
mantras did not follow Vedic-Brahmanic ones chronologically. Nor are they two
entirely separate sets of ritual formulas: the two categories co-exist, and some-
times overlap.^6 Characteristic from this point of view are the sectarian forms of
the Vedic ga ̄yatrı ̄, where the name of the Sun, Savitar, is replaced by that of
482 andré padoux