Our Research

Roots and Branches: Emergence and Circulation of Mantras (Oxford)

Led by Principal Investigator Finn Moore Gerety in collaboration with Andrea Acri, the task force Roots and Branches: Emergence and Circulation of Mantras investigates the origins, historical development, and cross-cultural diffusion of mantras across diverse languages, geographic regions, and time periods. The research seeks to illuminate how these sacred utterances evolved and circulated, examining their relationship to systems of power and patronage alongside their broader resonance outside their contexts of origin.

To address these themes, the project spans three key research clusters. The first, Vedic Mantras, combines the textual analysis of early works—such as the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa and Jaiminīya Upaniṣad-Brāhmaṇa—with ethnographic fieldwork and audiovisual documentation of contemporary South Indian Brahmin ritual traditions, aiming to produce digitised resources and contributions to a central sourcebook. The second cluster, Tantric Mantras Across Boundaries, examines the transcultural and trans-religious dimensions of Tantric mantras, tracing their migration through Sanskrit and vernacular literatures into East and Southeast Asia, including Classical Chinese translations and Old Javanese texts. Finally, Mantras and Yoga, the third cluster, explores the role of mantras within early Yoga and their subsequent development through Tantric traditions, analysing their historical, soteriological, and contemporary global expressions to enrich the project’s publications and digital archives.