The Mahamrityunjaya Mantra
Also called the Great Death-Conquering Mantra, Tryambakam mantra.
A Rigvedic verse addressed to Shiva, recited for healing and long life.
The Mahamrityunjaya is a verse from the Rigveda addressed to Shiva as Tryambaka, the three-eyed. It asks for release from death in the way a ripe cucumber is released from its stem, an image the verse itself supplies.
It is among the best-known recitations for health and longevity, and families sometimes arrange sustained repetition of it, by count, during a serious illness. Whether a household uses it at all varies enormously.
Why the words are not here
The Vedic core is servable from Muller and Griffith, both long out of copyright, and this verse sits inside that material. What has no clean source is usable transliteration, and a mantra published without one is unreadable to most of the people who would come looking for it.
Every text on this site names the edition it came from and was checked against it twice. A prayer nobody can cite an edition for does not get printed here, however well known it is. The verification record lists what was held back and why, and how rights are established explains the test.
When people look for this
The moments this prayer is associated with. Each page carries cited guidance on how different traditions meet that moment.
Where it belongs
This page describes a prayer and, where we hold one, prints a named edition of it. It does not tell you whether to say it, or when. That judgment belongs to someone credentialed in the tradition, and nobody has signed anything here.