PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM 33
II. 169. “The first birth is from a natural mother; the second, from the ligation of the zone; the third from the due performance of the sacrifice; such are the births of him who is usually called twice born, according to a text of the Veda.”
II. 170. “Among them his divine birth is that, which is distinguished by the ligation of the zone, and sacrificial cord; and in that birth the Gayatri is his mother, and the Acharya, his father.”
Then let me come to Gayatri. It is a Mantra or an invocation of special spiritual efficacy. Manu explains what it is.
II. 76. “Brahma milked out, as it were, from the three Vedas, the letter A, the letter U, and the letter M which form by their coalition the triliteral monosyllable, together with three mysterious words, bhur, bhuvah, swer, or earth, sky, heaven.”
II. 77, “From the three Vedas, also the Lord of creatures, incomprehensibly exalted, successively milked out the three measures of that ineffable text, be ginning with the word tad, and entitled Savitri or Gayatri.”
II. 78. “A priest who shall know the Veda, and shall pronounce to himself, both morning and evening, that syllable and that holy text preceded by the three words, shall attain the sanctity which the Veda confers.”
II. 79. “And a twice born man, who shall a thousand times repeat those three (or om, the vyahritis, and the gayatri,) apart from the multitude, shall be released in a month even from a great offence, as a snake from his slough.”
II. 80. “The priest, the soldier, and the merchant, who shall neglect this mysterious text, and fail to perform in due season his peculiar acts of piety, shall meet with contempt among the virtuous.”
II. 81. “The great immutable words, preceded by the triliteral syllable, and followed by the Gayatri which consists of three measures, must be considered as the mouth, or principal part of the Veda.”
II. 82. “Whoever shall repeat, day by day, for three years, without negligence, that sacred text, shall hereafter approach the divine essence, move as freely as air, and assume an ethereal form.”
- “The triliteral monosyllable is an emblem of the Supreme, the suppressions of breath with a mind fixed on God are the highest devotion; but nothing is more exalted than the gayatri; a declaration of truth is more excellent than silence.”
- “All rights ordained in the Veda, oblations to fire, and solemn sacrifices pass away; but that which passes not away, is