10 October 2005

Mantra of the Heart Sutra

Om gate gate
paragate
parasamgate
bodhi svaha

—final mantra of the Heart Sutra


I don't know why, but I love this mantra. Even without knowing what it meant, I loved to chant it. It's deeply soothing to me. One translation into English is "Beyond - Beyond - Beyond the Beyond - Totally Beyond the Beyond - Awakening - So Be It." I like it even better since finding the translation. I got the translation here. The page also has the mantra written in the Sanskrit script (which someday I would like to learn to read), and an audio-bar to listen to it. One oddity: when I first heard the mantra, "svaha" was pronounced "shva-haa" but here it's being pronounced "swa-haa". I don't know enough about Sanskrit to know if one is correct and the other is not, or if it's just a variation in dialect. *shrugs*

No comments: