CONTRIBUTED BY
N.KRISHNASWAMY
Many people
across the world, now including
young people from India, think
that Hinduism is a ritual-ridden
religion. Some are willing to
go one step further and
use adjectives like "irrational"
and "superstitious". To them, it
may be so, but it
is certainly not reasonable,
or even rational, to deny
the appeal of ritual, when
it is accepted by millions
of people around the world.
Why has ritual found such
wide acceptance through the
ages across the whole of
mankind ?
In the
first place, we need to
recognise that religion itself,
whether considered rational or
not, fulfils a deep human
need. The human mind recognises
that the individual is
but a finite element of
an infinite matrix
of time and
space. As a consequence,
he has a fundamental need
to
relate to whatever
lies beyond the reaches
of his physical and mental
world. Addressing the
question of what power has
created and sustains
the endless reaches
of Creation, he is filled
with wonder and awe. He
symbolises it's Creator with
the word "God", and this
sets him on the
path of religion,
where experience can be expressed
only by symbols.
No religion
can be free from symbolism,
and ritual and prayer are just
symbolic expressions. No religion
can be without prayer or
ritual, and differences between
them is only a matter
of form and degree. And
the prayer is mostly in
the form of the spoken
word, with a physical posture
or gesture like folded
hands or bended knees, accompanying
the spoken word.
The Hindu
approach to prayer proceeds
from a deep understanding of
human psychology, where it
posits a convergence of
thought, word and
action. When these
three components do not
act in concert, we have
the beginnings of
dishonest or thoughtless speech
and action. Therefore
the Hindu prescription
for prayer rests squarely
on such a convergence,
which implies that
the involvement in prayer
must be total. The
exceptional person can,
of course, concentrate his
mind on the spirit of
the prayer, and
may have no need for
the word, gesture or posture
components. But for the
common individual, whose mind is
given to wandering, the word,
gesture and posture are essential,
because they
compel the attention
of the mind. Physical offering
of water, a leaf,
a flower or
a fruit to the deity
of one's choice, while chanting
the
words that articulate
the spirit of the offering,
are thus great aids to
make the prayer
complete. This, says Krishna
in the Gita (IX-26), is
what makes the
prayer acceptable to God. Every
Hindu prayer or ritual
rests on this meticulous
design.
This presentation
of the Gayatri Mantra provides
an admirable
illustration of this
approach and spirit of
the Vedas. This Mantra
originates in the
Rig Veda (III-62.10) and
is referred to with great
reverence in the Upanishads
and many other works. It
is indeed considered
to be the most sacred
and most significant prayer of
the
Vedas, and is,
for this reason, embedded
in the daily prayer, callled
the Sandhya-vandana, or more
correctly, the Sandhya Upasana. The
real name
of the Gayatri
Mantra is "Savitri Mantra" because
it is addressed to Savitr,
the Sun, the source of
all life on earth, and
therefore considered
a symbol of
that Ultimate Reality from which
all existence emerges. It
has become known
as the Gayatri because it is
set in the Gayatri metre,
a poetic form
built of four syllables to
a line. The Mantra is
comprised
of four lines
, the first of which
reads :
` -U>
` -uv>
` suv>
Ìm bh¨h Ìm bhuva× Ìm
suva×
The word
OM is regarded as the
most sacred and the most
significant word in the
Vedas, just as the Gayatri
is regarded as their most
sacred and significant prayer.
The word OM represents
Brahman, the Ultimate Reality,
from which it emerges as
this sound.This
sound represents the primordial
energy that creates the
Manifested Universe,
in it's three levels or
facets, the physical, the
psychic and the
divine, represented by the words Bhuh,
Bhuvah and Suvah. By this
opening invocation
the individual proclaims his
being part of the
Manifested Universe and the
Unmanifested Reality beyond.
The next
three lines of the Gayatri
Mantra are :
tt!
sivtu> vre{ym!
tat savitu: var¦²yam
-gaˆR devSy
xImih
bharg§ d¦vasya dh¢mahi
ixyae yae n>
àcaedyat!
dhiy§ y§ na: prac§day¡t
These lines pray that Savitr, the Sun that symbolises the Ultimate Reality, should, with his divine effulgence, enlighten our intellect to realise the Ultimate Truth. Freely translated,this mantra means:
We meditate upon that worshipful
effulgence of Lord Sun.
May He inspire our intellects
(in the right direction).
Note : Though the
word `Gayatri'could be said
to conveythe
name of the (Vedic) metre
of the composition,
it has an exalted level
of meaning in the Scriptures
(Brihadaranyaka
5-14--4 and Aiteraya Brahmana (13.1).
These scriptures explain the
word `Gayatri' to mean
the protector of the life-breath'
(gayan trayati iti
gayatri --- gayan vai pranah). This
concept is simplified
when the word meaning of
the mantra--gayantam trayati
(protector of the one
who sings it) -- is taken.
This
prayer can thus be seen
to have a universality
in content and
appeal to
anyone of any religious
persuasion. Indeed the Vedas
explicitly state
that the knowledge they contain
is to be imparted to
everyone without
distinction of sex, caste,
creed or race.
(Sukla Yajur Veda XXVI
- 2)
This
presentation of the Gayatri
Mantra should be of help
to those who
wish to adopt it for
recitation with a full
knowledge of it's
letter and spirit. Others
should be at least persuaded
that behind this
prayer, as indeed behind
the rituals of India, lie
a world of
depth and meaning, that
is not to be easily
brushed aside.