This is a complex topic for this medium & there is difference of opinion among mantrasAdhaka-s & ritualists. Hence, what I say is merely a brief overview &from my peculiar vantage point. While the great savants have spoken extensively on this one can say it is still a topic of note, among mantrin-s. It will sound like pure arcana for the rest - so mute if your an outsider. Of course, no rahasya-s will be offered for those are only discussed behind closed doors with true sAdhaka-s & students. Let us consider 3 positions:
- naïve view (IMO) of the chArvAka. He is usually the base position in most H thought.
- The actual vaidika kautsa.
- The later mImAMsaka-s of a certain brand or the prati-mImAMsaka-s discussed by shabara-svAmin.
“Useless”
The chArvAka holds that the mantra-s are useless & probably senseless too. In support of the latter he would cite the famous vaidika jarbharI turpharI sUkta to the ashvin-s by a certain kAshyapa and point out the eponymous words are unetymologizable in Skt & convey the senselessness of mantra-s in addition to their uselessness.
“Meaning useless”
The kautsa in contrast is a v1 who doesn’t say that mantra-s are useless; he wants them to be appropriately pronounced with fidelity but sees them as mostly meaningless because:
- they follow a fixed word order whereas a real sentence would alter that word order in different ways (especially in Skt).
- The literal understanding of a mantra text in Skt results in meanings that cannot possibly be true.
- They are replete with statements of opposite meaning.
The essence of yAska who defends against the kautsa pUrvapakSha is that all these purported features of mantra-s are common place in laukika Skt hence to claim that specially negate meaningfulness of mantra-s is an empty claim because by the same token they should also make laukika speech meaningless (contra what kautsa holds). Thus, yAska holds that one must pursue the etymology of the difficult words and find their meaning to understand mantra-s.
Kautsa-lite
Finally we have a third slightly different position who I suspect were the successors of the kautsa-s who were around during the classical mImAMsA exegesis. These chaps held that you can read meanings into mantra-s as they are for most part in Skt which you might understand directly or interpret like yAska & the shaunaka had done formerly. However, these meanings are not important, not the purpose of mantra & definitely not the intention of a mantra & its deployment. What was valid was it correct pronunciation & deployment at in the right ritual juncture. The nyAya of a blind man having eyes but they being dysfunctional is used by some proponents of this school. In some ways this is “kautsa lite”.
However, despite opposition by influential AchArya-s this view has had a certain popular adherence. We see the average mantra-sAdhaka learning the shruti or other mantra-s by rote but not understanding their meaning at all. At times not even the most basic sense. However, this mantra-vAha might perform a ritual flawlessly without a clue of what he uttered in accompaniment. We see this a triumph of the kautsa position.
Importance of meaning
This is the position we hold to be utterly wrong. The learned mImAMsAchArya-s of yore have already posited that this is untenable because you cannot observe vaidika injunction or dharma correctly if you cannot apprehend their meaning. Hence, the very validity of basing your dharma on shruti is negated by not knowing the meaning. I personally attach a further point which is often neglected even by those who accept the need to know meaning.
Following shaunaka & his successors I hold that it is not just enough to know the meaning of a mantra but also the connection of the mantra in meaning and/or form to the deity of the mantra i.e. devatA. The mantra’s validity needs both meaning & devatA.
stobha-s
It the AV, YV & RV shruti this is mostly transparent if you can understand the mantra to a degree. But one might turn around & say that the sAman has meaningless stobha-s & the whole thing is rendered meaningless with lopa & vikR^iti. So is mantra not meaningless after all. I say no: there is meaning which acquired by the connection to the devatA which exists via the form of the mantra (so meaning can also be structural).
Biological analogy
To give a proper biochemical analogy: A protein can have a globular structure with well defined strands & helices in a particular folding. This might catalyze a reaction or bind another molecule. This protein has a “functional sense” akin to a typical shruti mantra. A protein might have low entropy but clear cut repetitive structures like fibers. It is not that such proteins have no “functional sense”. They do perform some key, often structural, functions. Finally, a protein might have no structure or only assume such in certain conditions when combined with other molecules. Even such can have functional sense –like the glass like prionic states of low-complexity RNA-binding proteins. The latter two are like sAman-s with stobha-s inserted or pure stobha-gAnam.
Hence, once there is coupling to devatA there are many routes to meaning, even as for a protein when coupled to natural selection. This latter type of mantra like with stobha-s, stobha-gAna or kriyAshabda-s like phaT, huM etc is mirrored in the later mantra-s of the tAntrika mantra shAstra. Of course just like a low complexity protein outside the field of natural selection might be “functionally senseless” the bIja only or bIja riddled mantra-s might be senseless in ordinary Skt but coupled with the devatA they are fully sensible.