In memory of the victims of the Mumbai terror attacks, a prayer for peace from the Hindu tradition:<\/p>\n
svasty astu vishvasya khalah prasidatam, dhyayantu bhutani shivam mitho dhiya<\/i><\/i>
\nmanash ca bhadram bhajatad adhokshaje, aveshyatam no matir apy ahaituki<\/i><\/i>
<\/b><\/div>\n
“May the entire universe be blessed with peace and hope. May
\neveryone driven by envy and enmity become pacified and reconciled. May all
\nliving beings develop abiding concern for the welfare of others. May our
\nown hearts and minds be filled with purity and serenity. May all these
\nblessings flow naturally from this supreme benediction: May our attention
\nbecome spontaneously absorbed in the rapture of pure love unto the
\ntranscendent Lord.”<\/b><\/p>\n
– offered by Prahlad Maharaj in the Srimad Bhagavata Purana, Canto 5, Chapter
\n18, Verse 9
translation by Ravindra Svarupa Dasa (William H. Deadwyler, III)<\/p>\n
Please feel free to share your own prayers for peace — from within Hinduism or any other tradition, or of your own composition — below. <\/i> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today, November 26, 2009, marks the one year anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks– beginning on November 26, 2008 and lasting until November 29, 2008, terrorists sent by an Islamic extremist group in Pakistan coordinated more than ten shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India’s financial capital. Reports conflict, but it is generally accepted that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-quote-unquote"],"yoast_head":"\n
Mumbai 26\/11: A Prayer for Peace - Om Sweet Om<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mumbai 26\/11: A Prayer for Peace - Om Sweet Om\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today, November 26, 2009, marks the one year anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks– beginning on November 26, 2008 and lasting until November 29, 2008, terrorists sent by an Islamic extremist group in Pakistan coordinated more than ten shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India’s financial capital. Reports conflict, but it is generally accepted that…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Om Sweet Om\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-26T09:56:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/mumbai_ribbon-thumb-100x100-9676.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Vineet Chander\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mumbai 26\/11: A Prayer for Peace - Om Sweet Om","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mumbai 26\/11: A Prayer for Peace - Om Sweet Om","og_description":"Today, November 26, 2009, marks the one year anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks– beginning on November 26, 2008 and lasting until November 29, 2008, terrorists sent by an Islamic extremist group in Pakistan coordinated more than ten shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India’s financial capital. Reports conflict, but it is generally accepted that…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html","og_site_name":"Om Sweet Om","article_published_time":"2009-11-26T09:56:22+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/mumbai_ribbon-thumb-100x100-9676.jpg"}],"author":"Vineet Chander","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html","name":"Mumbai 26\/11: A Prayer for Peace - Om Sweet Om","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/mumbai_ribbon-thumb-100x100-9676.jpg","datePublished":"2009-11-26T09:56:22+00:00","dateModified":"2009-11-26T09:56:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/cf2056f344b6fa435169a0edd9e93d8b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/mumbai_ribbon-thumb-100x100-9676.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/mumbai_ribbon-thumb-100x100-9676.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2009\/11\/mumbai-2611-a-prayer-for-peace.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mumbai 26\/11: A Prayer for Peace"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/","name":"Om Sweet Om","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Sheetal Shah","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/cf2056f344b6fa435169a0edd9e93d8b","name":"Vineet Chander","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/221\/221efe0b0631084cd4843bb843427584x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/221\/221efe0b0631084cd4843bb843427584x96.jpg","caption":"Vineet Chander"},"description":"Vineet Chander is a legal and communications consultant, writer, and teacher, specializing in the Hindu diaspora community. He is a Hindu Chaplain and the Coordinator for Hindu Life at Princeton University, and serves as the North American Director of Communications for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a worldwide organization representing the Vaishnava Hindu tradition. In previous incarnations, Vineet has been a New York City prosecutor, a cable TV show host, and a hospital chaplain. In his free time, he enjoys relaxing with his wife and his new baby, attending classes at The Bhakti Center, and teaching himself photography. As a second-generation, Indian-American, Vaishnava-Hindu, Vineet ponders new ways of further hyphenating his identity.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/author\/vchander"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"mumbai_ribbon.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/123\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/11\/mumbai_ribbon-thumb-100x100-9676.jpg\")
<\/a><\/span>Sometimes in the face of unimaginable horror, in the midst of unspeakable sorrow, in response to inconceivable evil — all we can do is pray. All we can do<\/i> seems to imply that prayer is an admission of helplessness or futility. It is true that prayer is far too often seen as a last resort, but Hindu wisdom holds that prayers are more than just utterances of futility or wishful thinking. Sometimes a prayer can be a proclamation of hope, or a pledge to fundamentally alter the spiritual fabric of the world around us. Hinduism teaches that certain sacred sounds, or mantras<\/i>, operate as a sort of performative utterance<\/a>.<\/p>\n