Shanti and om shanti

The word

Shanti comes from the Sanskrit root sham, to be calm or quiet. It means peace, not only as the absence of conflict but as a settled state of mind. In careful chanting the word is pronounced shantih, with a light out-breath at the end.

That settled state is the thing most busy people come to yoga for, even if they would never use the word. It is the quiet aim of lessons for stress and burnout, where the practice slows down until the mind can follow.

Where om shanti shanti shanti comes from

The phrase belongs to the shanti mantras, the peace chants of the Upanishads. Students of these texts recited them before and after study, to ask that teacher and student be protected, that learning go well and that there be no ill will between them. Each chant ends the same way: om, then shanti three times.

Some of the best known are still chanted in yoga rooms today. One, from the Taittiriya and Katha Upanishads, begins “om saha navavatu” and asks that teacher and student be protected and nourished together. Another, from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, asks to be led from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality. A third, which opens the Isha Upanishad, speaks of fullness: take fullness from fullness, and fullness remains.

Om, the syllable at the start, has a long history of its own, set out on the page about what om means.

Why three times

The most common traditional explanation is that the three shantis answer three kinds of trouble. The first is adhyatmika, trouble that comes from within: illness, worry, our own restless mind. The second is adhibhautika, trouble that comes from other beings and the world around us. The third is adhidaivika, trouble from forces beyond anyone’s control, such as storms and natural disasters. Peace is asked for from each in turn.

Teachers also offer simpler readings: peace in body, speech and mind, or peace in the past, the present and the future. Whatever the explanation, the repetition does something on its own. The voice drops, the pace slows and the chant comes to rest.

How it shows up in a modern practice

Many classes close with a single om followed by shanti three times, sometimes after a closing namaste with the palms together. Others chant a whole shanti mantra at the start. The phrase also travelled into literature: T. S. Eliot ended The Waste Land, in 1922, with the threefold shantih.

Shanti is one of many mantras, words repeated as a focus for the mind, and one of the easiest to begin with because it is short and its meaning is plain.

How it can come up in a lesson

A private lesson has no room of voices, so a closing chant is your choice. If you would like one, we can end with om shanti shanti shanti, said once, softly. If not, the lesson simply closes with the sound and a few quiet breaths. Either way the aim is the same: to leave a little calmer than you arrived. Other words on this page are explained in the Sanskrit glossary. The training behind my teaching was a 200-hour course at House of Om in Bali.