What does the Gayatri mantra mean?

Vedic text (the hymn itself)

In the Rig Veda the verse stands in a hymn to several gods, in the part addressed to Savitar. Griffith's plain rendering keeps close to the words: the worshippers ask to receive Savitar's “excellent glory”, and ask the god to stimulate their prayers. His note calls the stanza “the Sâvitrî, the Gâyatrî par excellence”, and quotes H. H. Wilson: “the celebrated verse of the Vedas which forms part of the daily devotions of the Brahmans”.

Sources for this reading

• Rig Veda 3.62.10, in R. T. H. Griffith (tr.), The Hymns of the Rigveda, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Benares: E. J. Lazarus, 1896): the hymn's head and its note on the six triplets (the fourth to Savitar), the verse, and Griffith's note quoting H. H. Wilson. Griffith died 1906: public domain. Quoted verbatim; checked on the page images. (pp. 389–390 (leaves n403–n404))

Upanishad (Brihadaranyaka)

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad explains the name. The verse is called Gayatri because it protects (tatre) the vital breaths (gayas). Its three feet, of eight syllables each, are matched with the three worlds, the three Vedas and the three vital breaths. Max Müller's note adds that the teacher teaches this Savitri verse to a pupil brought to him at eight years old, word by word and half-verse by half-verse.

Sources for this reading

• The Upanishads, Part II, translated by F. Max Müller (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XV; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884) (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 5.14.1–5 and Müller's notes, pp. 196–198 (leaves n253–n255); summarised in our words; checked on the page images)

Dharmashastra (Manu)

The law books place the verse at the centre of daily prayer. Manu says the pupil should stand at the morning twilight “muttering the Sâvitrî until the sun appears”, and recite it seated in the evening “until the constellations can be seen distinctly” (2.101). He calls the syllable Om, the three great words and “the three-footed Sâvitrî” the portal of the Veda (2.81), and says that “nothing surpasses the Sâvitrî” (2.83). In these books it is taught at the initiation of the sacred thread, which they give to the three twice-born classes (2.36–38, 2.170). The household manuals differ on which verse each class learns: Shankhayana gives this gayatri verse to a Brahmin, and a verse to Savitar in another metre to a Kshatriya or a Vaishya; Paraskara gives the same rule, and then allows the gayatri verse for all.

Sources for this reading

• G. Bühler (tr.), The Laws of Manu (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 25, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886): 2.36–38 (the initiation of the three twice-born classes, “the Sâvitrî (initiation)”), 2.44 (the sacrificial string), 2.77–78 (the verse sacred to Savitri, recited at both twilights), 2.81, 2.83, 2.101 and 2.170 (at the initiation “the Sâvitrî (verse) is his mother”), with Bühler's note on 2.77 identifying the Sâvitrî as Rig Veda 3.62.10. Bühler died 1898: public domain. Quoted verbatim; checked on the page images. (2.36–38 (pp. 36–37, leaves n181–n182); 2.44 (p. 38, leaf n183); 2.77–78 and note (p. 44, leaf n189); 2.81–83 (p. 45, leaf n190); 2.101 (p. 48, leaf n193); 2.170 (p. 61, leaf n206))
• Hermann Oldenberg (tr.), The Grihya-Sutras, Part I (SBE 29, 1886): Shankhayana Grihya Sutra 2.5.4–7 (“Let him recite a Gâyatrî to a Brâhmana, A Trishtubh to a Kshatriya, A Gagatî to a Vaisya. But let it be anyhow a verse sacred to Savitar”, with Oldenberg's note naming Rig Veda 3.62.10 as the Brahmin's verse); Paraskara Grihya Sutra 2.3.7–10 (the same rule, then “Or a Gâyatrî to (persons of) all (castes)”). Public domain. Checked on the page images. (p. 66 (leaf n77) and p. 307 (leaf n318))

Arya Samaj (Dayananda Sarasvati)

The Arya Samaj, a reform movement, reads the matter differently. Its founder, Dayananda Sarasvati, called on all people, regardless of caste, to study the Vedas. Lala Lajpat Rai's account of the Samaj (1915) says that its members gave the Gayatri and the sacred thread to some people of the castes then called the “depressed classes”, whom the law books' rule of initiation left out.

Sources for this reading

• Lala Lajpat Rai, The Arya Samaj: An Account of Its Origin, Doctrines, and Activities (London: Longmans, Green, 1915): Dayananda “called upon all people, regardless of caste and creed, to study the Vedas” (p. 73); the Samajists “administer Gayatri to a select number, invest them with the sacred thread” (p. 230). Lajpat Rai died 1928: public domain. Summarised in our words; checked on the page images. (p. 73 (leaf n106); p. 230 (leaf n281))

Early translators

English renderings differ a great deal. Griffith keeps to the words. Sir William Jones, as quoted in Griffith's note, gave a free paraphrase: “Let us adore the supremacy of that divine sun, the godhead, who illuminates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understandings aright in our progress towards his holy seat.” The difference shows how much a translation carries the translator's own reading.

Sources for this reading

• Griffith's note on Rig Veda 3.62.10, quoting H. H. Wilson on Sir William Jones's paraphrase, in The Hymns of the Rigveda, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (1896). Public domain. Quoted verbatim; checked on the page image. (p. 390 (leaf n404), note on verse 10)

Sources

• R. T. H. Griffith (tr.), The Hymns of the Rigveda, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Benares, 1896), Book 3, hymn 62; and his note on Book 2, hymn 38, stanza 1: “To quicken: the meaning of Savitar, as a name of the Sun, being the great generator or vivifier.” Public domain. Checked on the page images. (pp. 389–390 (leaves n403–n404); p. 307 (leaf n321))
• Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, new edition, with E. Leumann and C. Cappeller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899), s.v. gāyatrī: “an ancient metre of twenty-four syllables (variously arranged, but generally as a triplet of eight syllables each)”; the Gāyatrī is RV iii, 62, 10, “a very sacred verse repeated by every Brāhman at his morning and evening devotions”; because it is addressed to Savitṛ, the Sun as generator, it is also called Sāvitrī (summarised; the scan's diacritics are faint there). Monier-Williams died 1899, Cappeller 1925, Leumann 1931: public domain. Checked on the page image (title page, leaf n1: “Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1899”). (p. 352, col. 3 (leaf n498))
• The Upanishads, Part II, translated by F. Max Müller (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XV; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884) (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 5.14, pp. 196–198 (leaves n253–n255))

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