Gazpacho Guy at Gayatri

Gazpacho Guy Looks at the Gayatri

By John Taylor; 13 January, 2006

The next on our list of Introducing books to come into my hot little
hands courtesy of the Hamilton Public Library is one of the newest in
the series, "Introducing Hinduism," by Vinay Lal. This is a world
religion about which I know next to nothing and I desperately need a
primer like this. I was very interested to learn of a morning prayer
known as the Gayatri Mantra, a brief verse from which every Hindu
"upperclassman" has to learn upon coming of age. My Britannica says,

"After a ritual bath the boy is dressed as an ascetic and brought
before his guru (personal spiritual guide), who invests him with a
deerskin to use as an upper garment, a staff, and the sacred thread
... (blah, blah, blu, blah) ... It identifies the wearer as dvija, or
twice-born, the second birth understood as having taken place with the
imparting by the guru to the student of the Gayatri mantra, a sacred
verse of the Rigveda."

Lal in his Introducing primer unfortunately misidentifies the chapter
number of the Gayatri in the Rig Veda. I searched endlessly for it in
Ocean, and stumbled across this, whose sense seemed similar the text
of the Gayatri given by Lal:

"This song Visvavasu shall sing us, meter of air's mid-realm celestial
Gandharva,

That we may know aright both truth and falsehood: may he inspire our
thoughts and help our praises." (Vedas, Rig Veda, Book 10, v5)

Turned out that that was not the Gayatri, but it is very interesting
nonetheless. A prayer to know true from false, a prayer for inspired
thought and assisted laudation to God. Like many Baha'i prayers,
notably the Long Oblig, this is a meta-prayer or prayer prayer, you
are praying to be able to pray aright. Say it and you do not ask for
good for self or even others, you beg to be able to praise God in a
worthy manner. Again, the truth teller's paradox, the only way to
speak truth is to be sucked into the Black Hole of paradox and hope
that the Supreme will pull you out alive.

I sought out the Gayatri and did not find it, at least not for an hour
or so. I learned that this mantra is a very important, ancient ritual,
predating much else in Hinduism. According to Lal, it is unknown
exactly why it was singled out from other verses of the Vedas. It has
become pretty much _the_ statement of faith or credo for this
religion, rather like Islam's Five Pillars, or for that matter an
advertising slogan for a multinational corporation. The Gayatri
formula is recited by some groups of adherents during a set of morning
rituals said at sunrise to the god of the sun. The Laws of Manu (93)
stipulate that a dawn devotion include the following:

"When he has risen, has relieved the necessities of nature and
carefully purified himself, let him stand during the morning twilight,
muttering for a long time (the Gayatri), and at the proper time (he
must similarly perform) the evening (devotion).

The Gayatri is a spirit, like the Holy Spirit is in Western faiths.
The Ramayana talks about the, "Holy Spirit of GAYATRI goddess of the
morning prayer." Saying it will grant desires, and save you from
desire itself. Some snippets from the vast body of Hindu scripture
seem to imply that the mantra can stand for the whole, huge body of
scriptures rather like in Christianity Jesus declared that the Golden
Rule is "the law and the prophets." The difference is that most Hindus
take it completely literally, they learn this verse and almost never
"interfere" with the rest of the scriptures by actually reading them.
If they did, they would come across this fascinating bit of symbolism:

"Man is sacrifice. His (first) twenty-four years are the
morning-libation. The Gayatri has twenty-four syllables, the
morning-libation is offered with Gayatri hymns. The Vasus are
connected with that part of the sacrifice. The Pranas (the five
senses) are the Vasus, for they make all this to abide (vasayanti)."
(Upanishads vol. 1, Khandogya-Upanishad Part 2, verse 1)

This numerology is reminiscent of the 24 "elders" of Baha'u'llah,
which we usually think of as coming from the Book of Revelation. The
first 19 of that number are the Letters of the Living, the Bab, plus
five Baha'is to be named in the future. Add five (for the five senses
or the five points of the pentacle, symbol of the Baha'i faith) to
nineteen and you get twenty four. For those who are into these things
this might have meaning. At any rate, there are twenty four syllables
in the Gayatri mantra and some castes learn it and "come of age" at
twenty four years old. Finally, I found the translation of the Guyatri
given in Ocean:

"May we attain that excellent glory of Savitar the God: So May he
stimulate our prayers. With understanding, earnestly, of Savitar the
God we crave Our portion of prosperity." (Vedas, Rig Veda, Book 3,
62.10-11)

Does not make much sense, does it? Still, you can see the meta-prayer
aspect here. Lal offers two alternate translations of the verse that
look to my eyes a little more felicitous. The first seems to be the
more literal one.

Translation one: "Let us meditate on the wondrous splendor of the sun;
may it arouse our minds."
Translation two: "Let us bring our minds to rest in the glory of the
divine truth. May truth inspire our reflection." (Introducing
Hinduism, p. 13)

Striking here is the fact that among these translations are two of the
three most common translations of the Arabic word Baha, "glory" and
"splendor," the third being "light." Also, you cannot help but notice
how strikingly similar the image is to what we say after washing the
face in our medium obligatory meta-prayer: "I have turned my face unto
Thee, O Lord! Illumine it with the light of Thy countenance." An early
riser chanting this mantra at sunrise is just the image of the Master
in His talks of the seeker who turns to the "Sun of Truth," which
rises at different dawning points during the year, while imitators
just turn in the same direction. Imitators ignore the need to "turn
your mind" or "meditate" on the truth itself. If you were to read His
talks and did not know that Baha'i comes from Islam, you would think
that `Abdu'l-Baha was consciously invoking Hinduism. Indeed, now that
I think of it, He often spoke of His coming from the "East," and by
that He may well have been including India as well as Persia. Even the
idea of "confirmations of the Holy Spirit," so often spoken of by
Abdu'l-Baha, seems closer to Hinduism than most of what you come
across in Islam. Food for reflection.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com