The word Mantra means to transcend the mind ("Manantrayate"). Before talking about mantra, lets understand the difference between Word (Shabda) and Sound (Dwani). The Word is eternal, it was never born or it never dies (Anahat). It lies in 51 coils wrapped around our backbone (or Shushumna Nadi). These are packets of energies called Matrukas, which when expressed becomes the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet.