Empowered Speech from Indic Mantras to the Name of Jesus

abstract: Empowered speech plays a critical role in the sacred texts of both Christianity and Buddhism. In the former, divine names—like that of Jesus—are invoked to access healing power, while the latter portrays mantric recitation producing an array of benefits in this life and the next. How do these respective presentations of powerful speech-acts compare? What “is” a name or a mantra according to these traditions, and how do such seemingly simple utterances channel otherworldly power? This article will analyze Origen’s onomastic theology and the scholarship of mantric experts to explicate each tradition’s celebration of empowered speech in light of the other. It will highlight both resonances and dissonances in how these traditions respectively present empowered speech and then will discuss several implications following from this comparison.