An Ethnography in Andhra-Telangana by Alivelu Nagamani Graduate Department of Religion Duke

288 Pages·2016·11.53 MB·English

Visionary Experience of Mantra : An Ethnography in Andhra-Telangana
by
Alivelu Nagamani
Graduate Department of Religion
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Leela Prasad, Supervisor

___________________________
David Morgan

___________________________
Hwansoo Kim

___________________________
Velcheru Narayana Rao

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in the Graduate Department of
Religion in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2016

i
v
ABSTRACT
Visionary Experience of Mantra : An Ethnography in Andhra-Telangana
by
Alivelu Nagamani
Graduate Department of Religion
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Leela Prasad, Supervisor

___________________________
David Morgan

___________________________
Hwansoo Kim

___________________________
Velcheru Narayana Rao

An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Department of
Religion in the Graduate School of
Duke University

2016
Copyright by
Alivelu Nagamani
2016
Abstract
The use of codified sacred utterances, formulas or hymns called “mantras” is
widespread in India. By and large, scholarship over the last few decades studies and
explains mantras by resorting to Indian sources from over a millennium ago, and by
applying such frameworks especially related to language as speech-act theory, semiotics,
structuralism, etc. This research aims to understand mantra, and the visionary
experience of mantra, from the perspectives of practitioners engaged in “mantra-
sadhana (personal mantra practice).”
The main fieldwork for this project was conducted at three communities
established around “gurus (spiritual teachers)” regarded by their followers as seers, i.e.,
authoritative sources with visionary experience, especially of deities. The Goddess, in
the forms of Kali and Lalita Tripurasundari, is the primary deity at all three locations,
and these practitioners may be called tantric or Hindu. Vedic sources (practitioners and
texts) have also informed this research as they are a part of the history and context of the
informants. Adopting an immersive anthropology and becoming a co-practitioner
helped erase boundaries to get under the skin of mantra-practice. Fieldwork shows how
the experience of mantras unravels around phenomena, seers, deities, intentionality and
results. Practitioners find themselves seers mediating new mantras and practices,
shaping tradition. Thus, practitioners are the primary sources of this research.
This dissertation is structured in three phases: preparation (Chapters One and
Two), fieldwork (Chapters Three, Four and Five) and conclusions (Chapter Six). Chapter
One discusses the groundwork including a literature review and methodological plan—
a step as crucial as the research itself. Chapter Two reviews two seers in recent times
who have become role-models for contemporary mantra practitioners in Andhra-
iv
Telangana. Ethnographic chapters Three, Four and Five delve into the visionary
experience and poetics of mantra-practice at three locations. Chapter Six analyses the
fieldwork findings across all three locations to arrive at a number of conclusions.
Chapter Three takes place in Devipuram, Anakapalle, where a temple in the
shape of a three-dimensional “Sriyantra (aniconic Goddess form)” was established by
the seer AmritanandaNatha Sarasvati. Chapter Four connects with the community
surrounding the seer Swami Siddheswarananda Bharati whose primary location is the
Svayam Siddha Kali Pitham in Guntur where the (image of the) deity manifested in
front of a group of people. Chapter Five enters the experience of mantras at Nachiketa
Tapovan ashram near Kodgal with Paramahamsa Swami Sivananda Puri and her guru,
Swami Nachiketananda.
Across these three locations, which I find akin to “mandalas (groups, circles of
influence, chapters),” practitioners describe their experiences including visions of deities
and mantras, and how mantras transformed them and brought desired and unexpected
results. More significantly, practitioners share their processes of practice, doubts,
interpretations and insights into the nature of mantras and deities. Practitioners who
begin “mantra-sadhana (mantra-practice)” motivated by some goal are encouraged by
phenomena and results, but they develop attachment to deities, and continue absorbed
in sadhana. Practitioners care to discriminate between what is imagined and what
actually occurred, but they also consider imagination crucial to progress. Deities are
sound-forms and powerful other-worldly friends existing both outside and within the
practitioner’s (not only material) body. We learn about mantras received from deities,
seen and heard mantras, hidden mantras, lost mantras, dormant mantras, mantras given
silently, mantras done unconsciously, and even the “no”-mantra.
v
Chapter 6, Understanding Mantras Again is an exploration of the fundamental
themes of this research and a conceptual analysis of the fieldwork, keeping the mantra-
methodologies and insights of practitioners in mind—what are mantras and how do
they work in practice, what is visionary experience in mantra-practice, what are deities
and how do they relate to mantras, and other questions. I conclude with an overview
and a list of the primary sources of this research— practitioners.

vi
Dedication
For Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba

vii
Contents
Abstract..........................................................................................................................................iv
Dedication....................................................................................................................................vii
Contents.......................................................................................................................................viii
List of Tables.................................................................................................................................xi
List of Figures..............................................................................................................................xii
Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................xiii
Note on Translation, Transliteration and Names...................................................................xv
1. Preparation.................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Frames of scholarship......................................................................................................3
1.1.1 Early Indian thought...................................................................................................4
1.1.2 Contemporary scholarship......................................................................................10
1.2 Fieldwork.........................................................................................................................18
1.2.1 Positioning..................................................................................................................19
1.2.2 Methodological challenges.......................................................................................25
1.2.3 Navigating subjectivity.............................................................................................28
1.3 Practice as research.........................................................................................................32
1.4 Unbracketing ‘experience’.............................................................................................39
1.5 Inside Andhra-Telangana..............................................................................................48
2. Are there seers today?............................................................................................................53
2.1 Maharishi Daivarata.......................................................................................................59
2.2 Chandole Sastry..............................................................................................................65
3. Embodiment at Devipuram...................................................................................................73
3.1 The thousand-eyed Goddess........................................................................................73
viii
3.2 The man behind Devipuram.........................................................................................76
3.3 Invitation to cosmic energies........................................................................................82
3.4 Goddess Bala...................................................................................................................87
3.5 Goddess Chandi.............................................................................................................94
3.6 Goddess Lalita................................................................................................................99
3.7 Goddess Kali.................................................................................................................110
3.8 AmritanandaNatha Saraswati (1934-2015)...............................................................117
4. Extraordinary effort in Guntur...........................................................................................122
4.1 When the Goddess arrives..........................................................................................122
4.2 A poet becomes a guru................................................................................................125
4.3 An atheist turns to mantra..........................................................................................129
4.4 Experimentations with mantra...................................................................................133
4.5 Devotion as investment...............................................................................................139
4.6 Persistence pays............................................................................................................144
4.7 After many lives...........................................................................................................150
4.8 Calling deities...............................................................................................................158
5. A poetics of practice in Kodgal...........................................................................................165
5.1 Nachiketa Tapovan......................................................................................................165
5.2 Immersion in the ocean of mantra.............................................................................170
5.3 Openness to the divine................................................................................................173
5.4 Repetition of mantra....................................................................................................183
5.5 Transported by sound..................................................................................................186
5.6 Silencing the mind........................................................................................................189
5.7 The “NO”-mantra.........................................................................................................190
5.8 The guru-disciple bond...............................................................................................197
ix
5.8.1 Diksha.......................................................................................................................200
6. Understanding Mantras Again...........................................................................................204
6.1 Mandalas........................................................................................................................204
6.1.1 Unique mandalas.....................................................................................................209
6.1.2 Before and beyond categories................................................................................211
6.2 Seers and visionary experience..................................................................................214
6.2.1 Illusion and reality..................................................................................................216
6.2.2 Is vision visual?........................................................................................................224
6.2.3 Visions of meaning..................................................................................................226
6.3 Aesthetics of mantras...................................................................................................229
6.4 Some speculations about deities.................................................................................231
6.5 Factors for success........................................................................................................236
6.5.1 Guru and deity.........................................................................................................236
6.5.2 Imagination, intention, feeling..............................................................................238
6.5.3 Levels of sound, levels of experience...................................................................241
6.6 In conclusion.................................................................................................................245
6.7 Primary sources............................................................................................................247
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................249
Fieldwork.............................................................................................................................249
Bibliography........................................................................................................................249
GLOSSARY................................................................................................................................268
BIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................................................270

x