[Buddha-l] OṂ MAṆI PAD ME HŪṂ

[Chris Fynn]

Richard Hayes wrote:
> 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.)  

Like Dan and others I find Lopez suspect on a number of counts - but 
there may be a grain of truth here - while the Tibetan commentators I am 
familiar with refrain from attempting to make grammatical or literary 
sense of mantras, several do warn of the folly of such attempts so there 
must have been some that attempted this in the past. Does Lopez cite any 
any of these foolish commentators?

Modern Sanskritists may have only revived an old sport or perhaps 
extended it. As far as I can make out in Buddhism mantras (sngags) have 
long been held to have only symbolic or "mystical" meaning  and some 
power to transform while otoh dhāraṇī (gzungs) often do contain 
intelligible phrases (that seems to be the main distinction made between 
the two).

That's not to say that mantras have no meaning - indeed they are usually 
held to be imbued with a great deal of symbolic - but not literary - 
meaning.

In this instance I was referring to Lokesh Chandra's attempt to locate 
Oḍḍiyāna in South India * and other such daring attempts to construct an 
elaborate thesis or re-write history on what seems like the rather shaky 
foundation of the supposed "literal meaning" or grammar of generally 
unintelligible phonemes in mantras. I can't imagine commentators of the 
past going quite so far.

It must be fun to be a Sanskritist  (/ Sanskritologer?)- but I fear I'm 
getting too old and lazy in this life to learn the language of the devas 
to a level that I could participate in such sport. I'll have to content 
myself with barbarian languages such as English and Tibetan.

- chris

* "Oḍḍiyāna: A New Interpretation" in M. Aris & Aung San Suu Kyi, 
Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson, Warminster, 1980, pp. 73-78