Gayatri Mania

"Among Mantras I am Gayatri"
--Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

New York teenagers do it. Yoga teachers do it. Ascetics in the Himalayas do it, as do housewives in New Delhi. It is the Gayatri Mantra, a chant thousands of years old, spoken in a dead language, and yet the mantra's tremendous power, according to those who chant it, gives peace and calm to today's stressed-out multitudes. It is said that the Gayatri Mantra liberates one from the fruits of karma--the cycle of endless births and rebirths, and its maha mantra, or supreme status among mantras, is universally recognized. No surprise then that the rapidly proliferating CDs of the mantra have become best-sellers both in the United States and in India.

According to The Indian Express, one of India's three leading newspapers: "Every music company worth its salt [has] come out with albums devoted to the mantra." Artists as diverse as Swami Sukhabodhananda, Suresh Wadkar, Ajit Kadkade, Anuradha Paudwal, and Kavita Krishnamurthy have come out with their versions.

The Gayatri Mantra is a famous mantra that has been chanted since Vedic times, 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. It concerns the creation of the universe by Lord Brahma. It is a universal prayer, an amalgamation of potent sounds. "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 University of Florida religion professor Vasudha Narayanan. "By reciting it, one doesn't seek just cognitive, conceptualized knowledge, but the splendor and brilliance of transformative wisdom." The Gayatri Mantra, says the album notes to one popular version, "has the force to move the cosmos."

"O Divine Beings of all three worlds," says the mantra, "we meditate upon the glorious splendor of the Vivifier divine. May He Himself illuminate our minds."

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