Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound

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Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1995 - Religion - 290 pages
 

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Page ix - The voice of the Lord is upon the waters : The God of glory thundereth : The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful : The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
Page 42 - Om! — This syllable is this whole world. Its further explanation is: — The past, the present, the future — everything is just the word Om.
Page 212 - The primary phenomenon in the realm of understanding is not understanding OF language, but understanding THROUGH language. The word is not really the object of understanding, and thus the thing that poses the problem of understanding, the solution of which requires exposition and therefore also hermeneutics as the theory of understanding.
Page 42 - Two kinds of knowledge are to be known, as, indeed, the knowers of Brahman declare — the higher as well as the lower.
Page 42 - The word which all the Vedas rehearse, and which all austerities proclaim, desiring which men live the life of religious studentship — that word to thee I briefly declare.
Page 84 - ... seen." Since, for Patanjali, AUM is the mantra for IsVara, the devotee is advised that thejapa, or chanting of AUM, will result in the clear understanding of its meaning. Vyasa puts it in more psychological terms: The Yogi who has come to know well the relation between word and meaning must constantly repeat it and habituate the mind to the manifestation therein of its meaning. The constant repetition is to be of the Pranava and the habitual mental manifestation is to be that of what it signifies,...
Page 34 - As the Word is first in origin, it is also supreme in power. Often it is the name of the deity...
Page 2 - Indeed, it is the Word, it is language, that really reveals to man that world which is closer to him than any world of natural objects and touches his weal and woe more directly than physical nature. For it is language that makes his existence in a community possible; and only in society, in relation to a "Thee," can his subjectivity assert itself as a "Me.
Page 126 - A mantra is a quasi-morpheme or a series of quasi-morphemes, or a series of mixed genuine and quasi-morphemes arranged in conventional patterns, based on codified esoteric traditions, and passed on from one preceptor to one disciple in the course of a prescribed initiation
Page 49 - These early (Indian) phoneticians speak in fact to the twentieth century rather than to the Middle Ages or even the midnineteenth century, and many a statement which the commentators and even Whitney or Max Muller have failed to comprehend makes immediate sense to the phonetician today

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