Abstract
Rao discusses the concept of rishi (seer) in Indian thought, establishing the connection to visionary experience, and then discusses two cases of revelations in 20th-century CE India. The first instance is that of Daivarata (1892–1975) who received entirely “new” mantras during his meditation; Rao tells and then probes this story via research into the new mantras. The second narrative is about a vedic pundit called Chandole Sastry who had a private tantric practice and was visited by Goddess Bala after he did the Bala mantra. Mantras in use at his institution are attributed to direct revelations from the Goddess. Narratives like this are the recent historical context for practitioners today and serve as a thematic precedent to the ethnography of the next three chapters.
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Rao, M. (2019). Are There Revelations Today?. In: Living Mantra. Contemporary Anthropology of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96391-4_4
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