[Buddha-l] OṂ MAṆI PAD ME HŪṂ

[Richard Hayes]

On Jan 2, 2010, at 11:32 PM, Chris Fynn wrote:

> IMO Another 
> example of the sort of scholastic entertainment that can be derived by 
> Sanskritists attempt to make literal sense of mantras.

Is Lopez wrong when he reports that commentators have also attempted to make grammatical sense of mantras? Or am I misremembering what Lopez wrote? What I am really asking is whether modern academic Sanskritists have followed a traditional foolishness, or have found a novel way to be foolish. (Like Dan, I have no cock in this fight, but I suppose I would like to think that modern Sanskritists have made some sort of new contribution to the world's folly.)  

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes
rhayes at unm.edu