The significance of mantras in global religious history has long been acknowledged, but many aspects of this phenomenon remain poorly researched. It has become increasingly clear that exploring mantras as only a genre of religious language is insufficient: Mantras are not merely utterances or means of communication, but can also manifest themselves in special ways on the auditive, visual, and physical planes. They may be embodied, personified, and even deified; moreover, they also often play important roles in defining religious authority and social identity. Exploring such aspects requires the adoption of an interdisciplinary perspective. To the extent that it is successful, the present study, which deals not only with the history of the popular Gāyatrī-Mantra, but also with the process of its deification, demonstrates that the pursuit of such an approach can be very illuminating.
But while attempting to look at mantras from more than one angle is certainly worthwhile, it is also more challenging than some might imagine, even when it involves only a single mantra. In 2018, having decided to embark on the dissertation on which this book is based (Haas 2022a), a number of people asked how it could ever be possible to write a few hundred pages about a ten-word text. In contrast, most of those familiar with the subject – first among them my benevolent supervisor, Marion Rastelli – advised me to narrow down the scope of my research as far as possible. Only then would I be able to pack it into a dissertation at all. As it turned out, the latter were even more right than they may have thought: following the tracks of the Gāyatrī-Mantra and understanding its metamorphosis into a goddess was indeed quite demanding.
Although it is mentioned hundreds of times in the texts, this mantra has often moved through history below its surface, and I do not claim to have uncovered all of its channels and hidden paths.
As far as the two main research goals of the study are concerned, however, one can certainly say that some progress has been made: In three chapters each, the study provides a detailed account of, first, the historical process of the rise of the mantra, which took place primarily in the first millennium bce, and second, its development into a goddess during the first millennium ce. Two introductory
xii ∙ gāyatRī: mantRa and motheR of the vedas chapters are concerned with the meaning and the designations of the mantra as a text.
The contents of the study were presented (and subsequently improved upon) as lectures given at various occasions, among them the 11th and 12th Middle European Student Indology Conferences in Poznań and Warsaw (2018/2021); the 11th International Indology Graduate Research Symposium in Oxford (2019); the 9th Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas (2020); the 1st Heidelberg Indology Doctoral Symposium (2021); the
“Facets of Ancient Indian History and Culture” conference in Pune (2021); the
“Mantras: Sound, Materiality, and the Body” workshop in Vienna (2022; see Haas 2022b), the “Yoga darśana, yoga sādhana” conference in Kraków (2022); the conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions in Cork (2022); the 34th Deutscher Orientalistentag in Berlin (2022); as well as various colloquia at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna and the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Earlier versions of Chapter 1
and Appendix 1 were published in the journal Asian Literature and Translation (Haas 2023). To make my working process more transparent as “Open Science,” and so as to receive more feedback, I also made the project plan publicly available during the project’s initial phase (Haas 2019a).
Its completion would not have been possible without the generous support of many institutions and individuals. The Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna, offered the ideal conditions for the first two years. As the Recipient of a DOC Fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, I was able to concentrate fully on the dissertation during its last two years. I am also indebted to the director of this institution, Professor Birgit Kellner, for her willingness to include this book in the Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte *Asiens * and for her support in the publication process.
As for the study itself, my greatest thanks are of course due to Marion Rastelli for her unwavering support throughout the years and the many valuable suggestions she made concerning my countless drafts. Her constant insistence on textual evidence and her unerring sense of inconclusive argumentation have saved me from numerous serious blunders. Her advice was always spot on and always came at the right time – were it not for her, I would not have been able to complete this project so expeditiously. I would also like to thank the examiners of the dissertation, Professors Timothy Lubin and Jürgen Hanneder, as well as the two anonymous reviewers of the publisher, for their constructive criticism and helpful comments.
I am especially grateful to the many mentors, colleagues, and friends both in Vienna and across the world who have contributed to bringing this
pReface ∙ xiii
work to fruition by responding to questions, sharing with me their expertise, offering advice and support, providing invaluable feedback, and generously commenting on lectures and drafts. These include Professor Karin Preisendanz, Elisa Freschi, Nickolas P. Roubekas, Velizar Sadovski, Professor Chlodwig H.
Werba (†), Professor Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Vitus Angermeier, Christian Ferstl, Borayin Larios, Georgi Krastev, Ge Ge, Anja Vukadin, Magdalena Kraler, Nina Mirnig, Bernhard Scheid, Stefan Köck, Stephan Popp, Professor Mathilde Evelien Keizer, Johanna Buß, Hannes Fellner, Michael Wieser-Much, Markus Viehbeck, Thomas Kintaert, Oliver Frey, Alaka Chudal, Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek, Judith Starecek; Mieko Kajihara, Professor Joanna Jurewicz, Greg Bailey, Manya Saadi-nejad, Gustavo Benavides, Frank Köhler, Svevo D’Onofrio, Bruno A. V.
da Silva, Lubomír Ondračka, Christoph Vielle, Guy St. Amant, Axel Michaels, Vlad Soravel, Walter Slaje, Adriano Aprigliano, Gérard Huet, Raphaël Voix, Raik Strunz, Marta Monkiewicz, Anja Šintić, Kenji Takahashi, and Dev Kumar Jhanjh. I am also indebted to Arturo Silva for his careful and very perceptive proofreading – needless to say, I alone am responsible for all remaining errors.
Last but not least, I would like to thank Marie-Therese Steidl for supporting me all these years with much love, and for putting up with my frequent absentmindedness so patiently. Whether successful or not, this study proves beyond doubt that I was often (very often, in fact) quite absorbed in my work.
Dominik A. Haas
Vienna, August 31, 2023
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