[INDOLOGY] Early Orientalist attitudes towards mantras

[Finn Moore Gerety]

Dear colleagues—
I’m trying to substantiate my vague impression that some 19th-century Orientalists denigrated Sanskrit mantras as mumbo-jumbo and nonsense. I wonder if anyone on this list can point me to direct quotations or historiographic discussions of this.

To be clear, I’m interested in early Orientalist discourse on mantras in particular—not critiques of other Sanskrit genres such as Vedic prose (à la Max Müller’s notorious “twaddle” quotation).

Thanks in advance,
Finn

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