Golden sun face centered among eight Hindu deity portraits in circular frames on a beige sacred mandala background

The Mahamrityunjaya Mantra is chanted for protection and release from fear, but its real meaning is more precise than "immortality." Here is the Sanskrit text, word-by-word meaning, its Rig Vedic origin, and the three different traditional stories about how it came to be used.

Om Namah Shivaya is a mantra most people already know by heart. This post goes into where it actually comes from, what Om itself means according to the Mandukya Upanishad, and an honest look at the several competing explanations for why mantras are chanted 108 times.