THE HALLUCINOGENIC MEANING OF MANTRAS

by Hartosh Singh Bal

For a tradition that seems to extend back to the Harappan civilization, our lack of knowledge of some key aspects of Indic religions continues to be baffling.  One problem, of course is our inability to unlock the world of the Harappans. Signage and seals are available in large number but so far progress in deciphering them has been slow. Over the past few years an acrimonious debate has been underway between those who claim that we can bring new tools to the job such as Rajesh Rao and those such as Steve Farmer who argue that the script is actually no more than signage and is not in fact a writing system.

This argument over the meaning that can be ascribed to signage is reminiscent of another area of Indic studies, which while not mysterious in the same way, remains baffling to me – the meaning of mantras.

The word mantra has entered the English language as a ritual chant, a magic formula repeated over and over. As a definition this only partially conveys the sense in which a large number of Indians even today understand the word. Perhaps, in no other part of the world does a non-tribal tradition lay so much stress on the power of particular Sanskrit words chanted in a particular order to harm or heal. The mantra is at the heart of most tradition of Gurus and disciple where the initiation is connected to the passing on of a guru-mantra tailored to the individual disciple, often unique to him. This is a tradition that extends to closely related religious forms, such as Tibetan Buddhism, which also lay great stress on mantras. This is as far as healing goes, the ability to harm is also explicitly identified with the term. In popular usage the entire phenomenon of spells, witchcraft etc are often subsumed under the practice of tantra-mantra.

Interesting though this may be from the sociological or anthropological point of view, I am more concerned by what a skeptic or a rationalist is to make of this. One possibility is to ignore this as so much mumbo-jumbo (or tantra-mantra) but to me that makes little sense when faced with a tradition that relies so much on experiential knowledge as a basis for belief. What possible experience could explain the origins of this belief in the power of mantras?

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