Bhaktamar Mantra Healing -Magic Mantras

 MagicMantras: Bhaktamar Mantra Healing between Jainism and Spiritual Market

This article focuses on Bhaktamar Mantra Healing (BMH), a healing practice based on a popular Jain stotra. After an introductory discussion of tantra and tantric elements in Jainism, BMH is presented as the latest layer of a complex tradition that has grown around the Bhaktāmar stotra and is conceptualized as a "tantric reconfiguration": a relatively recent, creative blend of devotional and tantric Jain elements with some new influences, resulting in a systematized, democratized, and (to some degree) commodified mode of spiritual healing available in the spiritual marketplace. It then examines the significant digital media presence of BMH to demonstrate how information about the efficacy and mechanisms of mantra healing reveals a complex interplay of shifting religious, spiritual, and scientific narratives, and how functional differences between different digital media forms affect the prevalence of these various narratives. Ultimately, the article argues that viewing BMH as a tantric reconfiguration emerging from the encounter of a Jain practice with consumer culture is helpful in understanding what distinguishes BMH from other uses of Jain mantras and the significance of the digital space BMH has created for itself.

Jainism and Tantra

In the middle of the first millennium, a number of new religious methods emerged in the religious traditions of South and East Asia. Like the turn to piety described in Indian traditions from the eighth century onward, this wave of religious innovation - referred to in Indian religious studies as the Tantric turn - was not confined to any particular tradition. It swept across much of the religious sphere of South and East Asia, influencing Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, as well as Asian Islam, Daoism, and Shinto (White 2000: 6-7). As will become clear in the following discussion of Jainism and tantra, this tantric current manifested itself differently depending on the soteriological and philosophical ground on which it took root.

Although there is a broad consensus on the historical occurrence of the tantric turn, the term tantra continues to elude definition. The earliest Aetian descriptions of Tantra were informed to varying degrees by British - at times missionary - moral sensibilities, undercurrents of Orientalism, and colonial aspirations, and emphasized the transgressive and sexual nature of Tantra. This dramatization, in turn, led to a strong rejection of the term in many Indian traditions and, more recently, to its appropriation by sensationalist spiritual and sexual entrepreneurs (White 2000: 4; Urban 2010: 11).

Following an approach proposed by Douglas Renfrew Brooks (1990), recent research has tended to dispense with sensationalist colonial representations of tantra and the various monothetic responses they elicit, instead taking a more appropriate polythetic approach that allows for differences in practice and experience-both between traditions and over time-under the tantric umbrella (White 2000: 4-5; Urban 2001: 7-8). Such a polythetic approach allows for a shift in focus from broad theoretical discussions of tantra to specific contextualized practices that incorporate "tantric elements"-such as mantras (verbal spells), yantras (diagrams), Mudrās (hand movements), specific rituals, bodily practices, secret esoteric knowledge, etc. -that have a supposed influence either on the progress of the tantric practitioner on the path to liberation or on the worldly circumstances in which the practitioner finds himself.

Such an approach is better suited to the study of Jain religious practices and discourses because it largely bypasses the term "tantra"-a term that has been used in various meanings in historical Jain literature (Gough 2020a: 567), but today has such negative connotations that it is rarely used. The reluctance to use the term "tantra" in emic discussions of Jainism is illustrated by contemporary online discourses: while terms denoting tantric elements, mainly mantra and to a lesser extent yantra, are frequently used online in both emic and etic discussions of Jainism, the term "tantra" is more likely to appear in academic discourse on Jainism,footnote2 than in emic narratives.footnote3

Notwithstanding the contemporary absence of tantra in emic discourses, between the tantric turn in the fifth century and today, Jainism has developed various practices that make use of tantric elements. Indeed, comparative textual research has shown that the medieval tantric manuals of Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism largely represented the same range of practices (Sanderson 2015; Slouber 2015).Footnote5 Unlike the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, however, Jainism did not recognize tantric practices as a primary form of progress toward mokṣa (liberation). The tradition's soteriology and focus on individual karma made tantric intervention in a practitioner's spiritual progress problematic. Some scholars argue that such tantric shortcuts are completely unacceptable on the individual path to liberation (Cort 2000b: 417; Qvarnstroem 2000: 597; Bhattacharyya 2009: 241-42).Footnote6 Others point out that some sources suggest that there is limited room for the use of mantras to progress on the path to liberation after all (Kapashi 2007: 118-19; Gough 2020b: 582). The preliminary consensus is that tantric practices in Jainism are primarily a method of gaining some measure of control and power over worldly affairs, rather than a means of achieving mokṣa. Such practices may result in a direct transfer of power to the practitioner,footnote7 or they may benefit the practitioner by invoking a non-liberated deity to intervene on the practitioner's behalf.footnote8

Various types of tantric methods and actors developed in Jainism during the Middle Ages. Ritual complexes developed around goddesses such as Jvālāmālinī, Padmāvatī, and Sarasvatī as Vāgīśvarī (Cort 1987; Wiley 2006: 209) and, to a lesser extent, around male figures such as Gautama, Ghaṇṭākarṇa Mahāvīra, and Nākoḍā Bhairava (Dundas 1998; Cort 2000b: 417). Since these figures do not fit into the Jainist soteriological path, Paul Dundas has argued that "through their ability to grant requests and offer protection, they represent an infusion of worldly values and a willingness on the part of Jainism to make some concessions to the more worldly aspirations of lay devotees and potential converts alike" (2002: 213). Tantric manuals such as the tenth-century Jvālāmālinī Kalpa detail how to harness the power of these deities through rituals, such as for healing purposes (Granoff 1998: 218; Gough 2020a: 573-74). In addition to tantric practices involving rituals and mantras, meditative practices were developed using visualizations or diagrams (yantra or maṇḍala) that were said to have the power to influence the karma of the individual practitioner (Gough 2020a: 571-72).

The Tantric turn in Jainism was not limited to the lay public, but included the ascetic community in various ways (Qvarnstroem 2000: 597). In medieval Jain miracle stories, the bodies of ascetics are attributed powers through direct touch or indirect contact-for example, the water used to wash a monk's feet is said to have healing powers (Granoff 1998: 225-30). Although the worldly goals of tantra seem at odds with the soteriological focus of Jainism, Jain monks are also reported to have actively participated in mantric culture, and their ability to overcome human or divine opponents through spells became an important indicator of their general status (Dundas 2000: 232). Certain mantras believed to embody powers, and the rituals through which these powers could be activated, sometimes became a form of restricted knowledge passed exclusively between initiated members within Jain ascetic lineages-for example, sūrimantra (Dundas 1998, 2000: 233; Gough 2017: 273-74) and vardhamānavidyā (Gough 2020b: 582).

Tantric Elements in Contemporary Jainism

It is, of course, difficult to assess the extent to which the methods described in the tantric manuals and narrative literature reflect the actual practices of their time. Today, the most salient features and practices that we see described in the medieval sources briefly discussed above have disappeared. What remains are tantric elements; mantras are the most common tantric element in contemporary Jainism.Footnote9 However, such tantric elements are largely subordinate and integrated into orthodox Jain practices; embedded in devotional rituals and contemplative practices without overtly engaging their potential transformative powers. The pañcanamaskāra mantra, for example, is used in all sorts of contexts, but is usually explained as a prayer of obeisance to teachers at various stages of the path to liberation, or as a formula to be repeated to enhance the practitioner's concentration. Mantras are also commonly used in devotional rituals. When these rituals are directed at a Tīrthāṅkara who has attained liberation and is now no longer present in the world, they cannot cause interference in worldly affairs on behalf of the devotee. However, when rituals are addressed to non-liberated (protective) deities, it is possible-but by no means certain-that the worshiper may seek such intervention. Some contemporary Jains do indeed seek the intervention of non-liberated deities through rituals, including mantras and yantras, to ask for a wide range of blessings - success in studies, fertility, robust health, success in business, and so on. However, few would consider these practices central to the Jain tradition. These developments are also reflected in the digital world. While historical tantric practices, such as the ritual complexes around goddesses and the associated tantra manuals discussed above, are absent from emic - and indeed any non-academic - online discourse on Jainism, tantric elements such as mantras have very much become part of the digital realm of Jainism. As in offline religious practice, these elements are mostly integrated into online narratives or practices of a devotional, ritual, or contemplative nature that do not indicate an overt transaction that would qualify them as tantric.

Occasionally, however, we find mantras and yantras, as well as references to the tantric body, kuṇḍalinī, and cakra, used, discussed, and combined in new ways.Footnote10 Although such narratives or practices are not entirely new, drawing on terminologies, methods, and practices developed over centuries, they are also not simple continuations of an existing tantric tradition. BMH is an example of such a tantric reconfiguration.