Reina de Oros

A "Mantra" is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit believed by practitioners to have psychological and spiritual powers. A mantra may or may not have syntactic structure or literal meaning.

The earliest mantras were composed in Vedic Sanskrit by Hindus in India, and are at least 3000 years old. Mantras now exist in various schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.

The Shanti Mantras or "Peace Mantras" are Hindu prayers for Peace (Shanti) found in Upanishads. Generally they are recited at the beginning and end of religious rituals and discourses. Shanti Mantras are invoked in the beginning of some topics of Upanishads. They are supposed to calm the mind of the reciter and environment around him/her. Reciting them is also believed to be removing any obstacles for the task being started. Shanti Mantras always end with three utterances of word "Shanti" which means "Peace". The Reason for uttering three times is for calming and removing obstacles in three realms.