Gayatri

For other uses, see Gayatri (disambiguation).

Illustration by Raja Ravi Verma. In illustrations, the goddess often sits on a lotus flower and appears with five heads and five pairs of hands, representing the incarnations of the goddess as Parvati, Saraswati etc. She is especially identified with Saraswatī.

Gayatri (Sanskrit: गायत्री, gāyatrī) is the feminine form of gāyatra, a Sanskrit word for a song or a hymn.

Portrayal

Gāyatrī is typically portrayed as seated on a red lotus, signifying wealth. She appears in either of these forms:

• Having five heads with the ten eyes looking in the eight directions plus the earth and sky, and ten arms holding all the weapons of Vishnu, symbolizing all her reincarnations.
• Accompanied by a white swan, holding a book to portray knowledge in one hand and a cure in the other, as the goddess of Education.

She is an aspect of Maa Saraswati, a form of Adi Shakti, possessing the Rajasi Guna and hence is the source of Brahma's power. Without her, Brahma remains dormant or unable to create.

Hymns

Recitation of the Gayatri Mantra is preceded by oṃ (ॐ) and the formula bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ (भूर् भुवः स्वः), known as the mahāvyāhṛti ("great utterance"). This prefixing of the mantra proper is described in the Taittiriya Aranyaka (2.11.1-8), which states that scriptural recitation was always to begin with the chanting of the syllable oṃ, followed by the three Vyahrtis and the Gayatri verse. Following the mahāvyāhṛti is then the mantra proper, the verse RV 3.62.10:

In Devanagari:

ॐ भूर्भुवः॒ स्वः ।

तत्स॑वितुर्वरे॑ण्यम् ।

भ॒र्गो॑ दे॒वस्य॑ धीमहि। ।

धियो॒ यो नः॑ प्रचो॒दया॑त्॥ ।

In IAST:

Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

tát savitúr váreṇ(i)yaṃ

bhárgo devásya dhīmahi

dhíyo yó naḥ pracodáyāt

Whereas in principle the gāyatrī metre specifies three pādas of eight syllables each, the text of the verse as preserved in the Rigveda Samhita is one syllable short, the first pāda counting seven instead of eight. Metrical restoration would emend the attested tri-syllabic vareṇyaṃ with a tetra-syllabic vareṇiyaṃ.

The hymn of Gayatri Devi

In popular culture

During the year 2003-04, a series based on the mythological stories of Goddess Gayatri was aired on Doordarshan, the national TV channel of India on prime time (10 AM, Sunday). Serial also included biography of Pt. Shriram Sharma Acharya, founder of All World Gayatri Pariwar.

See also

• Upanayanam
• Saraswati

Further reading

• Gayatri Mahavigyan The Most And the best Book for understanding Ma gayatri.http://pustak.org/home.php?bookid=4272 [2]

you can read the book online by http://literature.awgp.org/books [3]

• Sacinandana Swami: The Gayatri Book., Vasati Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-937238-05-0
• "Gayatri Sahasranam", Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Devi Mandir (ISBN 1-877795-57-7)
• Sadguru Sant Keshavadas (1978,2006). Gayatri: The Highest Meditation. Dehli: Motilal Bandarsidass Publishers PVT. LTD. pp. 148 pages. ISBN 81-208-0697-2. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link) [4]