[Buddha-l] OṂ MAṆI PAD ME HŪṂ

[Chris Fynn]

Tibetan lamas (some of whom do know Sanskrit) generally say that one 
should not try to interpret mantras as grammatically meaningful 
sentences or phrases. This, they claim, is why mantras were left 
untranslated in Tibetan.

In an article Lokesh Chandra claimed that many of the syllables in 
Buddhist mantras which seem nonsense in Sanskrit, do make sense in 
Dravidian languages and, on this basis, theorized that the land of 
Uddiyana / Oddiyana was actually Kanchi in South India! IMO Another 
example of the sort of scholastic entertainment that can be derived by 
Sanskritists attempt to make literal sense of mantras.

- Chris