Drawing upon linguistics, semiotics, anthropology and philosophy, as well as the history of religions, the author argues that mantras and other ritual discourses use rhetorical devices, including imitation, to construct the persuasive illusion of a "natural language", one with a direct and immediate connection to reality.

Robert A. Yelle has a Ph.D. in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago. He spent a year as a Fulbright-Hays Fellow researching Tantric ritual in Calcutta, India, and has published articles in Numen, Religion, and the Journal of the American Academy ofReligion.

Acknowledgments Abbreviations Note on Translation Introduction: The Word and the World 1. Opening the Puzzle Box: Mantras, Poetry, and Magic 2. Chanting the Cosmogony: Mantras as Diagrams of Creation 3. The Linguistic Ideology of the Tantras: Language, Canon, and Idolatry 4. The Science of Illusion, Part One: Poetry and the Dream of a Natural Language 5. The Science of Illusion, Part Two: The Rhetoric of Ritual 6. Toward a Genealogy of Ritual and Rhetoric: Iconophiles and Iconophobes Notes Bibliography Index