31. How do Mantras Relate to Yoga?
Yoga Studies in Five Minutes - Theodora Wildcroft
Finnian M.M. Gerety [+]
Brown University
Finnian M.M. Gerety is a historian of Indian religions focusing on sound and mantra. After
earning a PhD. in South Asian Studies from Harvard University, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music; he currently teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University. Integrating the study of premodern texts with insights from fieldwork in contemporary India, Finn’s research explores how sound has shaped religious doctrines and practices on the subcontinent from the late Bronze Age up through today. His forthcoming book project for Oxford University Press, This Whole World is OM: A History of the Sacred Syllable in Early India, is the first-ever academic monograph on OM, the preeminent mantra and ubiquitous sacred syllable of Indian religions.
Description
Mantras are utterances, formulas, verses, and syllables used in ritual, healing, magic, meditation—and in yoga. While often spoken and sounded, mantras remain closely entwined with cognitive processes and in transnational modern yoga, mantras are further credited with inducing gratitude and acceptance, providing affirmation, and helping practitioners cultivate well-being and equanimity.