Gayatri Mantra
The Gāyatrī Mantra, also known as the Sāvitrī Mantra, is a highly revered mantra from the Rig Veda (oldest sacred Hindu texts), dedicated to the sun deity (before sunrise called Savitr, and sunrise until sunset called Sūrya). The Gayatri mantra is cited widely in Vedic and post-Vedic texts, such as the mantra listings of the Śrauta liturgy, and classical Hindu texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, Harivamsa,and Manusmṛti. It was also praised by the Buddha in the Pali Canon. Its daily use, long a common Hindu practice is now widespread all over the world.
Quotes
[edit]- May we attain that excellent glory of Savitar the god: So may He stimulate our prayers.
- Translated by Ralph. T. H. Griffith (1896)
Quotes about Gayatri Mantra
[edit]- The Gayatri is perhaps the greatest and most beautiful of all the ancient mantras. It has been chanted all over India from time immemorial... in an antiquity so remote that the very memory of it has been forgotten, the altruistic use of such mantras was fully comprehended and practiced. It begins always with the sacred word Om, and with the enumeration of the planes upon which its action is desired—the three worlds in which man lives, the physical, the astral and the mental.
- C. W. Leadbeater in The Masters and the Path, p. 149, (1925)
- This aim is formulated with utmost brevity in the famous Gâyatrî Mantra which is daily recited by hundreds of thousands of people all over India. The Mantra prays for arousing, activating, animating and manifesting our mind and understanding. Several Upanishads begin with this prayer: "Make strong my limbs, my speech, my vitals, my eyes, my ears and other senses".
- Ram Swarup, On Hinduism (2000)
See also
[edit]- The Ageless Wisdom Teachings
- Blessings
- Four Noble Truths
- The Great Invocation
- The Light of Asia, by Edwin Arnold
- Mantras
- Meditation
- Om
- Om mani padme hum
- Prayers
