Mantras in Religion, Media, and Society in Global Southern Asia

New Research on Mantras & Yoga IV
Chair: Saarthak Singh (EFEO, GREI)
• Mantram, Posture and Siddhi in South Indian Martial Art
Lucy May Constantini (University of Vienna)
• Swami Sivananda’s Japa Yoga: Framing Mantra Practice as a Form of Yoga
Gudrun Bühnemann (University of Wisconsin Madison)
• Sikh Kirtan Parampara and Maryada: Dueling Claims to Authority in Revival of Sikh Music Tradition
Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa-Baker (Loyola Marymount University)

New Research on Mantras & Yoga III

Chair: Véronique Bouillier (CNRS, Cesah)

• Inscribing Ram: Bhakti Yoga, Material Practice, and Digital Circulation in Contemporary Hinduism
Borayin Larios (University of Vienna)

• Visual and Material Culture of Yogis and Mantra
Seth Powell (Yogic Studies)

• Living through Mantras: Mantras among Contemporary Hindu Ascetics
Daniela Bevilacqua (University Institute of Lisbon)

• Not Giving a Damn: Mexican Mantras for a Postmodern Yogic Path
Adrián Muñoz (The College of Mexico)

New Research in Mantras & Yoga II
Chair: Emmanuel Francis (CNRS, Cesah)
• Myths and Colophons: Intertextual and Paratextual Strategies Asserting the Authenticity of Purāṇic Kavacas
Amandine Wattelier-Bricout (CNRS, Cesah)
• History through Mantra: The Siddhānt Paṭal
James Mallinson (University of Oxford)
• Yogic Dying in the Javanese-Balinese Śaiva Traditions
Andrea Acri (EPHE, GREI)

New Research in Mantras & Yoga I
Chair: Jérôme Petit (BnF, GREI)
• Measuring Mantras, Breath and Brahmanical Asceticism
Finnian Moore Gerety (University of Oxford)
• OṂ in the Dharmaputrikā Saṃhitā
Christèle Barois (ERC, GREI)
• The Meaning of svādhyāya in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra and its Early Commentaries: Evidence from Unstudied Manuscript Svources
Philipp Maas (Leipzig University)
• Mantra, Temple, and the Yoginī-Affiliated Goddesses of the Devīpurāṇa
Sandra Sattler (University of Oxford)

📌MANTRAMS Project is at Yoga Darśana Yoga Sādhana: Authenticity, Authority and Adaptation

🗓️27-29 May 2026, Paris
🙌 MANTRAMS features

- MANTRAMS exhibition Dhun / Dhūnī – The Fires of the Name. Curated by Borayin Larios, Kanika Pruthi and Prema Goet

-Body and Mantra- Performing Somatic Research & Sounding the Goddess- Associated Rituals of Kalarippayarr by Lucy May Constantini 

- Daily panels titled New Research in Mantras & Yoga, featuring research presentations by MANTRAMS task force members, external collaborators and affiliated scholars. 

- Launch of the OMnibus of MANTRAMS platform, the MANTRAMS project’s digital research and multimedia archive.

📌Digital Humanities and Global Inequalities: Digital Return, Digital Orientalism and the Potential of Collaborative Multimodal Online Research Outputs

🗓️8-9 October 2026, University of Tübingen & ONLINE

🙌 Submission Deadline 20 May 2026

📌Visual Mantras Workshop: Inscription, Iconography, and the Visualization of Sacred Sound
🗓️20-22 May 2026, University of Vienna

How do mantras become visible? This workshop, organized by MANTRAMS (Task Force 3: Materiality of Mantras), examines the inscription, iconography, and diagramming of sacred sound across South Asian and transregional contexts. Topics include diagrammatic forms (yantras, maṇḍalas, protective designs), iconographic correspondences between syllables, deities, colors, and directions, subtle-body visualizations, and the politics of visibility, secrecy, and authority. The program opens with a public keynote by Kajri Jain (University of Toronto), “Vision in the sensorium of mantras”, followed by two workshop days featuring six panels with international scholars.

🌍ATTEND ONLINE (free, registration required). Please register to receive a unique Zoom link that covers the keynote and all workshop sessions. SCAN QR code on the poster for all details.

🙌LAST CHANCE TO SEE IN VIENNA the MANTRAMS exhibition Dhun / Dhūnī – The Fires of the Name, as well as the official Launch of the OMnibus of MANTRAMS platform, the MANTRAMS project’s digital research and multimedia archive.

📌 MANTRAS BETWEEN LANGUAGE, RITUAL AND MATERIALITY
EurAsia Summer Academy: Vienna Summer School on the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia

📅 July 6–11, 2026

📍 Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Spitalgasse 2, Courtyard 2, Entrance 2.7. 1090 Vienna, Austria

This year’s Vienna Summer School on the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia will introduce the participants to the subject of mantras or “potent formulas” in South Asia. The Summer School consists of a one-week intensive seminar that comprises expert-led Sanskrit readings and lectures that provide a comprehensive overview of the most important research approaches and theories in Mantra Studies. Participants will engage intensively with Sanskrit texts from various periods and traditions, including the Vedic tradition, Mīmāṃsā, Āyurveda, and Ta**ra. To round off the seminar, participants will also be introduced to non-textual and modern aspects of mantras by staff from the ERC-Synergy Project MANTRAMS.

⌛ Registration will close on 15 May, 2026. For more information and to apply, please send a CV and a short cover letter (c. 250 words) to Dr. Dominik A. Haas (dominik.haas(at)oeaw.ac.at)

🔊 A podcast episode on the MANTRAMS Project has just been published on the New Books Network. 

ℹ️ Prof. Carola Lorea, MANTRAMS P.I. at University of Tübingen, talks about the six-year project and its investigation on mantras across millennia and geographies — from their roots in Indian religious traditions through their circulation across South and Southeast Asia to their role in global spiritualities today — building extensive sonic, textual, and visual archives along the way.

📌 In addition to being available across all major podcast platforms, the episode is archived on Indian Religions: https://www.indianreligions.com/podcast/the-mantrams-project