Dr. Ofer Peres is a postdoctoral researcher in the MANTRAMS project. His research focuses on South Asian religious and literary history, particularly Tamil and Sanskrit textual traditions. He is especially interested in the transmission and transformation of religious and literary expressions across linguistic, generic, and cultural boundaries, both within and between these traditions.

Within the MANTRAMS project, Ofer investigates the circulation and transformation of mantras in the Tamil cult of Murukaṉ/Skanda. His research takes as its point of departure the coexistence of two distinct yet interconnected bodies of ritual speech: Sanskrit-derived mantras of āgamic origin and Tamil devotional compositions invested with protective and apotropaic powers; both are recited and understood as efficacious speech, often within the same ritual settings. By tracing their origins, transformations, and interactions, the project seeks to reconstruct the history of the Murukaṉ cult’s mantric ecosystem.