Practices
Japa
Devotional Practices
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Origin 800 BCE to 200 CE
Japa is the repetition of a mantra or a divine name, murmured under the breath or turned over silently in the mind, most often counted on a mala of beads so that attention has a body to keep it. It ranges from the fixed number a devotee undertakes each day to the continuous repetition a renunciant carries beneath all other activity, and the tradition grades it, holding the whispered lower than the silent and the silent lower than the fully internalised. Where general chanting is done aloud and often together, japa is characteristically solitary and inward, a discipline of the single name held to and returned to. It is common to every stream of Hinduism and is the practice on which mantra devotion, from the Gayatri to the names of Rama and Krishna, most depends.
Facts
Practice
Category of PracticeDevotional and meditative: the repetition of a mantra or divine name, most often counted on a mala, ranging from a fixed daily number to continuous inward repetition. 1 Who Performs ItAll adherents of the tradition 1 Solitary or Communal Attributions
TraditionHinduism, common to every stream of it. 3 Status
Status Within the TraditionHindu tradition grades japa by its form, holding audible repetition lowest, silent repetition higher, and the fully internalised repetition carried beneath all other activity as the highest form the practice can take. 2 Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 2 Form
Posture and Bodily FormCounted on a mala of one hundred and eight beads, or on the joints of the fingers 1 Origins
Origin Period Place of OriginThe Indian subcontinent 2 Common to every stream of Hinduism. Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteThe tradition grades japa's forms, holding the whispered repetition lower than the silent and the silent lower than the fully internalized. 4 Learn More
The Repetition of the Name
Japa is the meditative repetition of a mantra or a divine name, one of the most widespread of Hindu practices and a technique shared across the Indian religions. The repetition may be voiced aloud, murmured under the breath, or made silently within the mind, and the tradition ranks these in ascending order of subtlety and power, holding the wholly inward repetition to be the highest. The mantra may be a single seed-syllable such as Om, a divine name such as Rama or a formula addressed to a chosen deity, received in the classic case from a teacher at initiation. The aim is to still and gather the mind by giving it one thing to hold, and, in the devotional traditions, to keep the deity continuously present in the practitioner's awareness.
The Bhagavad Gita gives japa a high place, having Krishna declare that among sacrifices he is the sacrifice of quiet repetition, and the later devotional movements made the repetition of the divine name the very heart of religion, a path open to all irrespective of learning or birth.
The Mala, the Count, and the Shared Technique
Japa is commonly counted on a mala, a loop of one hundred and eight beads with a distinct summit bead that marks the completion of a round and past which the practitioner does not cross, reversing direction instead. The number one hundred and eight carries a wealth of symbolic explanation in the tradition. The beads free the mind from keeping count and let the repetition become continuous. Devotees may vow a fixed daily number of rounds, and the more intensive practice of akhanda japa, unbroken repetition sustained by a community in relay, keeps a name sounding without pause for long periods.
The technique is not confined to Hinduism. Buddhist recitation of mantras and of the Buddha's name, the Sikh remembrance of the divine Name in simran, and, by independent development, the Christian Jesus Prayer and the Islamic dhikr all rest on the same principle that steady repetition transforms the one who repeats. Within Hinduism the practice ranges from the disciplined concentration of the yogic path to the tearful, absorbed name-taking of the devotional saints.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
1. Encyclopedia of Hinduism
Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.), Routledge, 2008View the Source 2. An Introduction to Hinduism
Gavin Flood, Cambridge University Press, 1996On mantra and japaView the Source 3. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source 4. Bhagavad Gita
A Survey of Hinduism
Klaus K. Klostermaier, State University of New York Press, 2007On the repetition of the nameView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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