[Buddha-l] Om mani padme hum IN "Western Self, Asian Other"

[Dan Lusthaus]

> "Just don't release sarin in any subways."
> Come on Dan--that is not funny.

Just a self-reference to an earlier posting of my own -- re: scholars were 
willing to let anyone who call themselves a Buddhist define what was and 
wasn't Buddhism, and they'd let anyone call themselves a Buddhist -- until 
the Sarin attack, which suggested maybe it is time to do the difficult job 
of defining things with a bit more specificity. Heck, Buddhists have been 
doing that to each other for nearly 2500 years.

> I think you philogers are overdoing the classical grammatical
> focus.
> I bet this mantra got started in ages past and with constant
> vernacular use became variable in pronunciations and in writing,
> over time, like many other mantras from our own historical
> records.

I agree with you. All that fuss about a vowel (-e), which may just be a 
poorly transcribed -a, or who knows what.

The fun of exegesis.

Dan