10 Dec 2020
[Smt. Anita Renkuntla asked: Jai Gurudeva Datta! Pādanamaskāraṃ Swāmi! This is regarding the Gāyatrī Mantra which is to be repeatedly chanted. You have said that there is no deity called Mā Gāyatrī. But there is a Goddess Gāyatrī temple in Ahmedabad that was built for the spiritual awakening of people by Śrī Ram Sharma. I had a vision (darśanam) of the deity which is single-headed. I also had a darśanam of the five-headed Gāyatrī deity in Hyderabad. Please clear my doubt, Swāmi! Whose deities are these then?]
Swāmi replied: Building a temple for Gāyatrī does not establish the true concept of Gāyatrī. Somebody has introduced a prayer on Gāyatrī, which is composed in worldly metre called Śārdūlavikrīḍitam (Muktāvidruma…). That metre is not a Vedic metre. Gāyatrī is just the name of a Vedic metre in which this verse (Tat Savituḥ…) is composed. The deity worshipped through that verse is only God Brahmadatta. This is evident since while doing the daily worship called sandhyā vandanam, we recite “Gāyatrī chandaḥ, Savitā devatā, Paramātmā svarūpam”. The verse “Tat Savituḥ”, which is thought to be the Gāyatrī Mantra, speaks about God Brahmā, who is referred to as Savitā (Creator of the universe) and who illuminates our intelligence through the preaching of divine spiritual knowledge.
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