Hare Krishna Maha Mantra

The Maha Mantra — "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare", the great chant of the divine names.

Meaning

The sixteen-word mantra calls upon the Lord's energy (Hare), and his names Krishna and Rama — an appeal to the all-attractive, all-blissful Supreme to engage the soul in loving service.

Benefits

Chanted in japa and kirtan for devotion, joy and purification of the heart; regarded in the bhakti tradition as the foremost practice of this age for spiritual awakening.

The Sixteen Names, Explained

The mantra weaves three names into sixteen words. Hare is understood in the bhakti tradition as the vocative of Hara — the Lord's own energy and compassion, identified with Radha — or of Hari, "he who takes away" sorrow and sin. Krishna means "the all-attractive one," he who draws every heart. Rama means "the reservoir of all delight" — read both as Lord Ramachandra and as Radha-Ramana, Krishna the delighter. The mantra is entirely made of names in the calling case: it asks for nothing, states nothing — it simply calls the Divine, again and again, the way a child calls a parent.

Its scriptural seat is the Kali-Santarana Upanishad, which declares these sixteen names the destroyers of the ills of the age of Kali, adding that "no rule governs it" — it may be chanted by anyone, anywhere, in any condition.

How to Chant

Two streams of practice carry the mantra. In japa, it is chanted softly on a 108-bead tulsi mala, one full mantra per bead; practitioners in the Gaudiya line commonly vow a fixed number of daily rounds (16 rounds being the ISKCON standard). In kirtan, it is sung aloud in call and response with instruments, alone or in company. The early morning hours are considered most fruitful for japa, but the tradition's whole point is that the names may be chanted while walking, working or waiting — no purity conditions bar the way.

Who Chants It, and When

The Maha Mantra is the central practice of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and is sung on Ekadashi, Janmashtami and Gaura Purnima especially — see the ISKCON calendar for the Vaishnava festival days of the year. But it belongs to no single institution: devotees of every background chant it for joy, steadiness and the softening of the heart. Tradition asks only for attention to the sound and patience with the mind's wandering.

The Hare Krishna Maha Mantra above is given in both Devanagari (Sanskrit) and Roman transliteration so you can read it in whichever script you are comfortable with — switch between the two using the buttons above, share the link, or download a PDF.