Rhythmic chanting is an ancient tradition. With evolution of understanding and abilities, chanting became increasingly scientific and result-oriented.
Self-realised Vedic sages could perceive the forces in the universe and managed to manipulate them through specific sound combinations called Mantras.
Banjamin Lee Whorf, an American scholar and chemical engineer, researched the psychological aspects of language and published his findings.
"The idea, entirely unfamiliar to the modern world, that nature and language are inwardly akin, was for ages well known to various high cultures... In India, one aspect of it has been the idea of the mantram and of a mantric art...
"On the simplest cultural level, a mantram is merely an incantation of primitive magic, such as the crudest cultures have. In high culture it may have a different, intellectual meaning, dealing with the inner affinity of language and the cosmic order. At a still higher level, it becomes Mantra Yoga. Therein the mantram becomes a manifold of conscious patterns, contrived to assist the consciousness into the nominal pattern world, whereupon it is 'in the driver's seat'. It can set the human organism to transmit, control and amplify a thousand-fold forces which that organism normally transmits only at unobservable low intensities".
Somewhat analogously, mathematical formula enables a physicist to configure some coils of wire, plates, diaphragms and other quite inert tools to project music over great distances.
Other formulas make possible the strategic arrangement of magnets and wires in the powerhouse so that, when the magnets — rather the field of subtle forces — are set in motion, force is manifested as electric current. We do not think of designing a radio station or a power plant as a linguistic process, but it is one nonetheless.
The necessary mathematics is linguistic apparatus, and without its correct specification of essential patterning, the assembled gadgets would be disproportionate and inert. But the mathematics used in such a case is a specialised formula-language, contrived for making available a specialised type of force manifestation through metallic bodies only, namely, electricity.
The mantric formula-language is specialised in a different way, in order to make available a different type of force manifestation, by repatterning states in the nervous system and glands. Rather, in the subtle forces in and around those physical bodies. In this way you could link the subtle Eastern ideas of the mantric and yogic use of language with the configurative or pattern aspect which is so basic in language.
The late Paramacharya of Kanchi explained the scientific nature of Mantra: "Although the Vedas contain such noble concepts enshrined in them, the supernal sounds emanating therefrom is no less important. In fact, these sounds by themselves are potent enough; or rather, this divine potency is not confined to the 'Veda Mantras' only, but generally it is equally true of any 'Mantra' as such".
For many Mantras more impor-tance is attached to their sound patterns than to their actual meanings. Each letter and the way in which it should be pronounced is the potent factor behind it.