Gayatri

Gayatri is the goddess of the Gayatri mantra, regarded as the mother of the Vedas and the personification of the sacred verse. She is shown with five faces and ten arms, seated on a lotus, and in Puranic tradition is also the consort of Brahma. Her worship is pan-Hindu and rests mainly on the daily recitation of the mantra. In Odisha, Brahmin families renew the sacred thread and recite the mantra on Janai Purnima in Shravana.

The Gayatri mantra is a verse of the Rigveda, in the third book (3.62.10), addressed to Savitr, the sun as the impeller of thought. The verse is composed in the Gayatri metre of three lines of eight syllables, and later tradition made the metre and the verse into a goddess. The Upanishads and the...