Over 4 million people in Europe, including Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh minorities, and Yoga practitioners, use mantras—sacred utterances, formulas, or syllables—for ritual, prayer, contemplation, and wellness. Despite their widespread use and the term’s integration into modern European languages, mantras have rarely been studied comprehensively. 

The MANTRAMS Project, funded by a European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant, addresses this gap with a six-year initiative and a budget of €9,651,263. This project will produce an unprecedented global history and anthropology of mantras, leveraging the expertise of leading scholars on Southern Asia, where mantras have been used for over 3,000 years. It will examine how mantras have been transmitted through spaces, media, and religious communities, including diasporic networks, new religious movements, yoga, and the internet.

Using an interdisciplinary approach that includes Indology, anthropology, sound studies, media studies, art history, and the history of religions, the project will create comprehensive sonic, visual, and digital textual archives. These archives will document the transcultural and multisensory dimensions of mantras, culminating in a museum exhibition and a wide range of academic deliverables.

Our project has been developed in dialogue with communities of scholars and practitioners from Asia. Grounded in ethical international collaborations, our research emphasizes respect for local communities, traditional lineages and custodians of cultural heritage. 

We embrace a diversity of perspectives and approaches. This means that we do not regard any single viewpoint as universally legitimate or inherently more scientifically valid than others. MANTRAMS team members critically reflect upon their own positions in relation to the topic that they study. This openness and self-reflexivity allows the project to benefit from a multiplicity of approaches, including insiders’ perspectives, scholar-practitioners, heritage learners, and practice-led research.

Additionally, Lead Researcher Andrea Acri from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) also leader of his own ERC Consolidator MANTRATANTRAM project (“Monsoon Asia as the Nexus for the Transfer of Tantra along the Maritime routes”) and Senior Researcher Gudrun Bühnemann from the University of Wisconsin-Madison contribute their extensive expertise. Together, they aim to bridge gaps in understanding the complex phenomenon of mantras. In addition, an international team of collaborators based across the globe will contribute to the project’s interdisciplinary approach, providing diverse perspectives and insights into the global, historical, and cultural dimensions of mantras. This collaborative effort will enhance the project’s ability to produce a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of mantras, fostering a deeper understanding of their significance across different contexts and media.

Each research component is designed to address specific aspects of the study of mantras, from their historical roots and cultural diffusion to their material and digital representations. The combined efforts of these task forces aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the complex role of mantras across various contexts and media.

TASK FORCE 1: Roots and Branches: Emergence and Circulation of Mantras

Led by PI Gerety in collaboration with Andrea Acri

This task force investigates the origins, development, and diffusion of mantras across different cultures, languages, and time periods. It seeks to understand how mantras have evolved and spread, their connections to power and patronage, and their prominence beyond their original contexts.

RC1: Vedic Mantras: Tradition and Innovation

RC2: Tantric Mantras Across Boundaries

RC3: Mantras and Yoga

TASK FORCE 2: Sonic Efficacy

Led by PI Lorea

This task force focuses on the role of sound in religious practices, examining how mantras and other sonic elements contribute to spiritual and communal experiences.

RC4: Religious Sound, Religious Space: Mantras in Sonic Soteriology and Place-Making

RC5: Mantras from Below: Ensounding the Margins

TASK FORCE 3: Materiality of Mantras

Led by PI Borayin Larios with SR Gudrun Bühnemann

This task force investigates the material aspects of mantras, including their visual, embodied, and digital forms, and their impact on individuals and communities.

RC6: Material Mantras in Popular Hinduism

RC7: Digital Mantras

RC8: Visible Mantras