Śruti / The four Vedas / Ṛgveda · 5 of 10
5. The Gāyatrī
Ṛgveda (ऋग्वेद)
The verse a household calls the Gāyatrī is one line of a hymn to Savitṛ (सवितृ) in the third maṇḍala. The traditional account gives that maṇḍala to Viśvāmitra. The meter is itself called gāyatrī (गायत्री): three groups of eight syllables. The name of the meter and the name of the mantra met, and the mantra kept the meter's name.
Savitṛ is the impeller. The hymns know a sun, Sūrya (सूर्य), and they know this god whose work is to set things moving, including thought. The verse asks that his radiance be what the mind holds, and that he drive thought forward. It is a short request. It became, outside this one verse, the daily mantra of initiation and of the twilight recitation. That later life is real in the tradition. The words of Ṛgveda 3.62.10 are the line sat here.
What a household adds in front is oṃ, and bhūḥ, bhuvaḥ, svaḥ, the three utterances of earth, midspace, and sky. They are a frame. They are not the ṛgvedic verse. This sitting does not give a number of times to say the line, and it does not give a cord, a posture, or a hour. The Sanskrit shelf of the line is the verse itself.
Placed after the Nāsadīya and the Puruṣa, the verse is a change of scale. Those two hymns ask about the beginning and about a person who exceeds the world. This one asks that thought be impelled. The Veda's range includes both the cosmological hymn and the line a person repeats so that the mind will move.
तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि ।
धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥ tat savitur vareṇyaṃ bhargo devasya dhīmahi |
dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt ||
We meditate on that excellent radiance of the god Savitṛ. May he impel our thoughts. This is Ṛgveda (ऋग्वेद) 3.62.10, in the gāyatrī meter, three groups of eight syllables. A household recitation sets oṃ (ओं) and the vyāhṛtis bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ (भूर् भुवः स्वः) in front of it. Those syllables belong to that household practice. The saṃhitā line begins at tat savitur. This page gives no count of repetitions.
| Word | Grammar | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| tat (तत्) | accusative singular | That. Heard with what follows as the thing meditated on. |
| savituḥ (सवितुः) | genitive singular | Of Savitṛ, the impeller. Heard savitur before a voiced sound. |
| vareṇyam (वरेण्यम्) | accusative singular | Excellent, to be chosen. Agrees with the radiance. Heard vareṇyaṃ before bhargo. |
| bhargaḥ (भर्गः) | accusative singular of the neuter s-stem bhargas | Radiance, splendor. The object of dhīmahi. Heard bhargo before devasya. The sentence is taken as: may we meditate on that radiance. |
| devasya (देवस्य) | genitive singular | Of the god. Savitṛ's. |
| dhīmahi (धीमहि) | optative, first person plural, ātmanepada, of √dhī (धी) | May we meditate. May we hold in thought. |
| dhiyaḥ (धियः) | accusative plural | Thoughts. Heard dhiyo. |
| yaḥ (यः) | nominative singular | Who. Savitṛ. Heard yo. |
| naḥ (नः) | enclitic, genitive or dative | Our. For us. |
| pracodayāt (प्रचोदयात्) | causative subjunctive, third person singular, of pra-√cud (चुद्) | May he impel. |
नेपालीमा
गायत्री भनेर घरले जप्ने पङ्क्ति ऋग्वेद ३.६२.१० हो। यो सवितृको भजनको एक ऋचा हो। छन्द गायत्री हो, तीन पङ्क्ति, प्रत्येकमा आठ अक्षर। सवितृ प्रेरक हुन्। उहाँको तेज ध्यान गरौं, र उहाँले हाम्रो बुद्धिलाई प्रेरित गर्नुहोस्।
घरेलु पाठले अगाडि ओं र भूर् भुवः स्वः राख्छ। ती अक्षर घरको चलनका हुन्। संहिताको पङ्क्ति तत्सवितुःबाट सुरु हुन्छ। यो पृष्ठले जपको सङ्ख्या दिँदैन।
Where it sits
The Yajurveda, white and black, is the next sitting. The person of the previous hymn is the picture the rite will keep meditating on.