[Buddha-l] Mantra as "mind-protector"

[Mike Austin]

In message <20060929103918.528.qmail at web56412.mail.re3.yahoo.com>, 
Michael J. Wilson <michaeljameswilson at yahoo.com> writes

>I am really having a problem with the meaning and origin of the word
>"mantra" especially the one recently posted by Richard Hayes, which I
>can't dig out of the email digests at the moment.  In the article I
>found above I found this interesting, a defintion by Edward Conze
>suggesting it means "spell".  Is it an just an "urban myth" that mantra
>means "mind protector", considering the sanskrit etymology? 
>
>"Accepted scholarly etymology links the word with "manas" meaning
>"mind" and 'trâna' for protection so that a mantra is something which
>protects the mind -- however in practice we will see that mantra is
>considered to do far more than simply protect the mind."
>

This comes from "The Fulfilment of All Hopes - Guru Devotion in Tibetan 
Buddhism" - A commentary on Asvaghosa's Gurupancasika by Tsongkhapa and 
translated and introduced by Gareth Sparham:

  [Mantra] is secret because one does it secretly and conceals it and
  because it is not a subject for those who are not receptacles. sNgags
  is the Tibetan word for Sanskrit mantra. Now, [the Sanskrit root] man
  means "mind" and traya means "protector," hence mantra (mind
  protector). Thus the eighteenth section of the Guhyasamaja Tantra says:

  What comes about conditioned by the sense faculty and object is mind.
  Mind is explained as the man [part of mantra]. The tra [part] means
  "that which protects."

I have read it in other places as well. Maybe the meaning of the Tibetan 
word has a different yetimology.

-- 
Metta
Mike Austin