Jump to navigation Jump to anti gravity yoga in ahmedabad «Om Shanti» redirects here. The Om syllable is considered a mantra in its own right in the Vedanta school of Hinduism.

In Tibet, many Buddhists carve mantras into rocks as a form of meditation. Sanskrit believed by practitioners to have psychological and spiritual powers. The earliest mantras were composed in Vedic Sanskrit by Hindus in India, and are at least 3000 years old. The use, structure, function, importance, and types of mantras vary according to the school and philosophy of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Mantras serve a central role in tantra. They are typically melodic, mathematically structured meters, believed to be resonant with numinous qualities. Scholars consider mantras to be older than 1000 BC. By the middle Vedic period—1000 BC to 500 BC—claims Frits Staal, mantras in Hinduism had developed into a blend of art and science. According to Bernfried Schlerath, the concept of sātyas mantras is found in Indo-Iranian Yasna 31. Asian and Western traditions as well.

Mantras, suggests Frits Staal, may be older than language. There is no generally accepted definition of mantra. Renou has defined mantra as a thought. Mantras are structured formulae of thoughts, claims Silburn. Farquhar concludes that mantras are a religious thought, prayer, sacred utterance, but also believed to be a spell or weapon of supernatural power.