Both the Gayatris were given by the Kshatriya Seer-Rishis

Re: 18: The Wonderful Boon by RY Deshpande

on Sat 11 Aug 2007 09:53 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

The twenty-four lines of the boon

The speech of the divine Wisdom granting a boon to Aswapati consists of twenty-four lines, a Mantra by itself, with the transforming power to dynamise the mortal world in the truth-movement, dynamise it in every respect, to render to it the truth-rhythm, to make transcendental satyam and ŗtam its operative basis. “Savitri is a Mantra of the transformation of the world,” says the Mother; that Mantra, the revelatory Word with the force to realise what it pronounces, is quintessenced in this divine Utterance. There are about twenty-four thousand lines in Savitri, which could actually mean that each line of the Boon represents one thousand lines of this “sacred poem of delight”.

Twenty-four thousand lines of Savitri, twenty-four lines of the Boon, twenty-four syllables of the Sanskrit Gayatri Metre, the Gayatri Chhanda—each syllable expanded to one line of the Boon, and each line of the Boon to one thousand lines of Savitri, all these seem to be loaded with deep connotations, luminously occult in their character, and in their power of realisation. And just imagine! The Boon appears in the twenty-fourth canto of Savitri, Book Three Canto Four.

Here is the celebrated Gayatri Mantra given by the Vedic Rishi Vishwamitra, chanted through the long aeons of time: (Rig Veda III:62:10)
tat savitur varéņyam bhargo dévasya dhīmahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayāt
Let us meditate on the Creator-Sun, full of excellent god-radiance, that he may inspire and urge our right intelligence.

And here is Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri Mantra, given sometime during the early 1930s:
tat savitur varam rūpam jyotih parasya dhīmahi yannah satyéna dīpayét
Let us meditate on the most auspicious form of Savitŗ, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth.

But it should be noted that Vishwamitra’s Gayatri has, not twenty-four as is the tradition, but only twenty-three syllables, at times permitted by the metrical rules. In contrast to that, the Gayatri of Sri Aurobindo has exactly twenty-four syllables. It is interesting to note that both the Gayatris were given by the Kshatriya Seer-Rishis. RYD