History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.182.3

v7.c92.182.3

What is needed to awaken Power in the disciple and to reap the full effect of the mantra is the touch of the *guru*, the imagination and concentrated will power of the sādhaka. The deity willed that certain letters uttered by the seer should as sound or sounds convey such and such a meaning and should have a certain potency. The sounds represented by the letters are forms of Śivaśakti i. e. *Śabdabrahma*. From this last the whole world proceeds in the form of sounds (*śabda*) and the objects (*artha*) which sounds or words denote. The Devatā, the mantra and the guru are the essentials of *sādhanā* (procedure that leads on to Siddhi, laid down in Tāntrik works); the disciple has to revolve in his mind that the three are non-different. Mantra is not the same thing as a prayer. For a prayer a person may employ any words that he may choose, but in the case of a mantra definite letters are considered necessary, which are deemed to be the forms in which Śakti manifests Herself to the worshipper. A mantra may be in the form of words that have an obvious meaning or in the form of letters arranged in a particular order and that have no meaning to the uninitiated.