Explaining Mantras explores the intersection of poetry and magic in the mantras or verbal formulas of Hindu Tantra. The author reveals how mantras work in light of both the esoteric tradition of Tantra and a general semiotic theory of ritual. Mantras mimic the act of sexual reproduction and the cosmic cycle of creation and destruction. A mantra that imitates creation is believed to be more creative and effective in producing a real-world result. Drawing from linguistics, semiotics, anthropology and philosophy, as well as the history of religions, the author argues that mantras and other...
Explaining Mantras explores the intersection of poetry and magic in the mantras or verbal formulas of Hindu Tantra. The author reveals how mantras wor...
Following the heyday of Levi-Straussian structuralism in the 1970s-80s, little attention has been paid by scholars of religion to semiotics. Semiotics of Religion reassesses key semiotic theories in the light of religious data. Yelle examines the semiotics of religion from structural and historical perspectives, drawing on Peircean linguistic anthropology, Jakobsonian poetics, comparative religion and several theological traditions. This book pays particular attention to the transformation of religious symbolism under modernization and the rise of a culture of the printed book....
Following the heyday of Levi-Straussian structuralism in the 1970s-80s, little attention has been paid by scholars of religion to semiotics. Sem...
