Morning Mantras with Indian Pronunciation

I have uploaded onto Archive.org a recording of some of the mantras that Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche has advised us to do in the morning. These are traditional practices in our lineage, that is, the tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa, Mahayana Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism. These mantras can be found in the beginning of the FPMT prayer book, Essential Buddhist Prayers, Volume 1.

I asked a well-educated Indian friend to pronounce these mantras for me, since mantras are preserved in the classical language of India, Sanskrit. She in turn asked her mother to record them, saying that her mother has better pronunciation.

The speaker in these recordings is a woman from South India, who grew up in the State of Kerala but whose family ancestry comes from Goa. She has a Masters Degree, speaks five languages, and currently lives in the United States. She is not Buddhist, so these wouldn't be mantras that she does as part of her personal practice. She was reading from a print-out of the mantras written in the Devanagari alphabet, the Indian alphabet that is used for Hindi and some other dialects and is usually used for Sanskrit.

Note that she pronouces the second P letter--spelled PH in roman letters--as F, as do most South Indian people. Standard classical Sanskrit would make that letter an aspirated P, that is, a P with a strong puff of air behind it.

Enjoy.

- Drimay
April 2010

http://www.archive.org/details/Morning_Mantras_Indian_Pronunciation

Comments

  1. WendyJune 12, 2010 at 8:46 PM

    i'm really happy to hear these Drimay. didn't know you blogged; will check back! wendy

    ReplyDelete

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