Moola Mantras are powerful sounds and are very rich in their meaning which when chanted produce great effects. These are chanted repeatedly and that is called Japa. 
Japa is a key part of Hindu prayer

While doing japa one can meditate on the mantra and its meaning. As the mind dwell more and more into that, the mind and takes up to the higher States and forms the path to the great liberation -eternal bliss 

What makes moola mantras so special as compared to the normal words? Moola mantras are not human creations. Especially given that there are sages associated with the moola mantras! 

The point to be noted is that these sages are not composers of these moola mantras. Only the perfect one can unchangedly reproduce the moola mantra heard. The only one that is absolutely perfect is God. Vedas are full of moola mantras and hence have been preserved for ages in their pure form by utilizing the various techniques like PATHA, KRAMA, JATA, GANA PATAS, that ensure that the chanter clearly gets the correct letters and even the correct level of sound for each letter (svara). There would be gurus who initiate the disciple in a moola mantra, ensuring that the disciple receive the mantra in perfect original format. (It is really amazing to note that without being written down, the Vedas have been preserved in pure form across the land for ages. Though the texts are freely available now for anybody to read, it would be important to ensure that these moola mantras are properly learnt and then chanted. This way the treasure that as been preserved so carefully over multiple millenniums do not deteriorate due to indifference.

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