The "magical" language of Mantra

This paper aims to illuminate the phenomenon of mantras and to critique the category of magic through an examination of mantra as magical language. Mantras have often been referred to as "magic formulas" or "spells," yet one searches the scholarly literature in vain for a worthy explanation of precisely why mantra should or should not be considered magical. This essay addresses this lack, (a) explaining how mantra's conflict with modern Western understandings of language has led scholars to conceive of mantra as magic and (b) showing just what is at stake in such characterizations. This examination of mantra will demonstrate how "magic" and related terms have consistently been used not so much to describe as to marginalize and de-authorize that to which they refer. While the issue is partly about flawed terms and categories, the question of mantra as magic ultimately leads to an unsettling confrontation with the limits of our own modern rationalist perspective.