History through Mantra: the Siddhānt Paṭal

In their rituals Rāmānandī Tyāgī sādhus use mantras from a text called the Siddhānt Paṭal which was probably written in the 17th century, but is ascribed to Rāmānand, the 15th-century founder of the saṃpradāya, and is likely to include additions and alterations from as late as the 19th century. It teaches 65 mantras used to accompany rituals and to empower ritual implements such as fire-tongs and mālās. The vocabulary of the mantras includes tantric bīja mantras, Sanskrit benedictions, Braj Bhasha nirguṇī invocations and Persian Sufi terms. In this paper I shall examine a selection of these mantras and draw on them to make observations about what they can tell us about the history of the Rāmānandī order, from its origins to the 20th century.