The Power of Gayatri Mantra

” Among Mantras I am Gayatri”

– Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad  Gita

Ascetics in the Himalayas chant it, as do housewives in New Delhi, teenagers in New York and yoga teachers in California.  It is thousands of years old, spoken in a dead language – and yet it has tremendous power, and can give peace and calm to today’s stressed out multitudes. The chanting of the Gayatri Mantra, it is said, has the effect of liberating one from the fruits of Karma, and its Maha mantra status is universally recognized.  And now you can also get a head up on liberation by listening to it on CD!

“Gayatri Mantra is among the highest selling devotional albums today, resulting in every music company worth its salt to come out with albums devoted to the mantra,” notes The Indian Express. There are versions of the Gayatri by artists like Swami Sukhabodhananda, Suresh Wadkar, Ajit Kadkade, Anuradha Paudwal and Kavita Krishnamurthy but it is the Times Music version, released in 1999, which is still having huge sales.

Pramod Shankar of Times Music explains the success: “People want the mantra to be recited in an authentic and traditional way, and we have done that… We have consciously stuck to the original text of the Vedic literature. There’s no music and melodic treatment to the mantra.”

Indeed, the Times Music’s version has the noted classical maestro Pandit Jasraj reciting the Gayatri Invocation. The album contains the Gayatri Invocation, the Pranayam Mantra, the chanting of the Gayatri Mantra, the Stuti of Shloka  I&II and the Gayatri Aarti. The music and the chants have been composed and sung by Rattan Mohan Sharma.

The album notes explain the power of the Gayatri Mantra: “Invoked with total faith, humility and dedication, the Gayatri Mantra has the force to move the cosmos. Addressed to the energy of the Sun – Surya, the Mantra invokes an Immanent and Transcendent Divinity, who governs our life force, our speech and our senses. The album reinforces the central of spiritual teaching-the search for divinity has to begin within, through our mind, heart and soul. The Gayantri Mantra intensifies the belief that the Almighty is all-pervading and omniscient, and that God does not belong to any particular sect or community. God is for all humanity.”

Gayatri Mantra’s Meaning

Discovered by the Sage Vishwamitra, the Gayatri Mantra is the symbol of the creation of the Universe by Lord Brahma. It is a universal prayer, an amalgamation of potent sounds and .  “The Gayatri, of course, is the most important of mantras in the Hindu tradition.  It is sometimes called the “mother of the Vedas” and is certainly the most luminous among the mantras,” says Dr. Vasudha Narayanan, Professor of Religion at the University of Florida and the President-designate of  American Academy of Religion (AAR). “ By reciting it, one does not seek just cognitive, conceptualized knowledge, but the splendor and brilliance of transformative wisdom.”

She points out that it is possible that in Vedic times, both young girls and boys were initiated into this mantra but in time only boys of the upper castes were eligible for it. She adds, “ In the last two centuries various groups have reclaimed this beautiful mantra and I have heard men and women recite it both at regular prayers and at specific times of the day. Traditionally it is to be recited at twilight and midday and usually in the context of doing their sandhya vandanam.”

In this new compilation of the Gayatri Mantra, Pandit Jasraj delivers the invocation and his nephew along with the chorus chants the Gaytri Mantra over and over again – one hundred and eight times, to the sound of bells and conch shells, along with the shimmering sounds of the Sitar, the sweet tones of the bansuri and the hypnotic drone of the tanpura. Again and again the Mantra is repeated until a tremendous sense of well-being washes over you as you are immersed in the all-encompassing words and the deep resonance of Om.  It is impossible to listen to this chanting and be stressed out at the same time. The last track ends with a joyful aarti to Gaytri Ma. With a medley of drums, cymbals and harmonium, its words are in Hindi and reminiscent of the joyous sat sang that you hear in temples where devotees gather to the praises of God in unison.

Gayatri Mantra traditions

The Gayatri Mantra is important to practicing Hindus and they chant it daily. Murali Rangarajan, who is originally from South India, is a PhD student in Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida. He does the sandhya vandanam regularly (these are the twilight prayers and midday prayers when you recite the Gayatri).  He explains that the daily sandhya vandanam is considered to be mandatory in nature and one is supposed to do it without fail; if one misses a prayer it is to be done with a compensation or “penance” (prayaschitta).

Rangarajan got his upanayana (sacred thread) when he was 7 years old and has been chanting the mantra ever since. He feels it improves his concentration and composure and helps him through rough periods: “It is a kind of a fall back whenever I feel upset or angry – or in general whenever my mind ceases to act – and reacts. It helps me cool down. It is a reminder of my goal in life.”

The Gayatri Mantra is a mantra chanted as one’s nitya karma – daily actions -prescribed by the scriptures. It is simply put, a personal prayer, and does not come under the common form of puja that is performed in temples or to a deity.

Is Rangarajan passing on this tradition on to his own family? “Most definitely. I have seen for myself how useful it is and I have also seen the strong logic behind chanting any mantra, leave alone Gayatri.”

The power of the Mantra is being recognized by mainstream Americans too. Deva Parnell , who teaches yoga and trains yoga teachers at Discovery Yoga in St. Augustine, Florida ends all the yoga sessions with the chanting of the Gayatri. She says, “To me the mantra speaks of the divine spirit in all things. Hatha yoga is becoming more of an exercise technique so the Gayatri Mantra is a way for me to bring spirit back to maintain the spiritual connection between the individual consciousness and the divine soul.”

Traditionally, the Gayatri is chanted twice a day, during sandhya, the conjunction of two stages of time (basically sunrise and sunset). Sunrise is called pratah sandhya and sunset is known as madhyanna sandhya. Chanting the Gayatri at least three times in the early morning and three times in the evening is said to take care of all the ill effects of the day’s karma. Parnell says, “Clearly, by allowing time for spirit before the activities of the day, we are more conscious in our actions during the day. By allowing time for spirit at the end of the active day, we can more fully release the fruits of our actions and enter into restorative sleep.”

As a lifelong practitioner, Rangarajan believes the Gayatri Mantra is totally relevant to today’s stressful world where we often get overwhelmed by material realities. “Japa is a technique by which we consciously monitor and control our thoughts and thus observe the functioning of our mind. This is a rather general purpose of chanting any mantra but I have personally seen that the Gayatri Mantra gives the tejas (power) – or at least freshness, energy, clarity and peace that the Rishis claim it will.”

(C) Lavina Melwani

(This article first appeared in Beliefnet.com in 2000.)

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