1. Finnian Gerety | Vedic Ritual, OṂ, and Early Yoga

In this first-ever Yogic Studies Podcast episode, we speak with
Dr. Finnian Gerety (Brown University) about his background as a
musician, his journey to Indology and Sanskrit studies at Harvard
University, his fieldwork among Nambudiri Brahmins in the
south-Indian state of Kerala, the Sāma Veda performative
tradition, his short film "Mantras 2 the Max", the origins of
sacred sound and the syllable OṂ, the practice of OṂ at the time
of death, OṂ in the Yogasūtras of Patañjali, and the practice of
"Embodied Philology."

Speaker Bio


Dr. Finnian M.M. Gerety is a historian of Indian religions
focusing on sound and mantra. After earning a PhD. in South Asian
Studies from Harvard University, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at
the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music. Finn is currently
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, the
Contemplative Studies Program, and the Center for Contemporary
South Asia at Brown University, where he teaches courses on
mantra, yoga, ritual, and the senses.


Integrating the study of premodern texts with insights from
fieldwork in contemporary south India, Finn’s research explores
how sound has shaped religious doctrines and practices on the
subcontinent from the late Bronze Age up through today. His
current book project for Oxford University Press, This Whole
World is OM: A History of the Sacred Syllable in India, is the
first-ever monograph on OM, the preeminent mantra and ubiquitous
sacred syllable of Indian religions.

Links


YS 104 | The Story of OṂ: Sacred Sound and the Vedic Roots of
Yoga 

"Mantras 2 the Max" 

https://brown.academia.edu/FinnianGerety

https://www.instagram.com/thiswholeworld_is_om