2025

Many theories understand repetitiveness to be inherent in the concept of mantra itself. Despite its popularity and its significance for South Asian—and, indeed, global—religious history, mantra repetition has been insufficiently defined as an object of research. The peculiarities of the repetitiveness of mantra repetition are hardly ever reflected upon in academic literature. Furthermore, it has been assumed that mantra repetition is a timeless and even universal practice. Consequently, mantra repetition has eluded adequate scholarly analysis: Significant terminological particularities in primary sources have been overlooked and the possibility of historical developments has not been considered. In this article, I survey the current state of research relevant for the study of the emergence of mantra repetition—in particular, the practice of continuously reciting one and the same short formula—from its post-Vedic origins up to the middle of the first millennium CE. I also formulate research questions and hypotheses to guide future studies on the subject.

In Switzerland and France more than half of the catholic priests are over 75 years old. Yet, according to canon law at this age they usually must leave their pastoral responsibilities and may retreat from their ecclesial life. Facing the perspective of a church without priests, and enhancing a moral discourse in which human dignity and the exemplarity of the clergy entangle, the diocesan organizations have shown only recently a preoccupation about the ageing of their priests. Here, we develop an empirical framework for a sociology of ageing priests that considers the importance of their national and diocesan contexts. Our aim is to review the category of “ageing priests” through its contemporary heterogeneity. We use a grounded theory approach in qualitative sociology to examine different situations of this social category. Our considerations cross theological examples of aging priests in the Catholic Church, the statements of caregivers, and the “lived” heterogeneity of aging priests themselves. We aim to document the current adaptations and new versions of Catholicism after the Second Vatican Council in the light of current gerontological norms that apply to the clergy.