Living Mantra

Mantra, Deity, and Visionary Experience Today

von Mani Rao

215 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

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.    

• Reihe: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion
• Themen: Gesellschaft und Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie und Anthropologie Anthropologie Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, Ethnographie
• ISBN: 9783030071844
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 03.01.2019
• Größe: 21 x 14.8 cm
• Verlag: Springer International Publishing