Two sounds sit at the root of Hindu prayer. One is a single syllable, held long: Om. The other is a verse of three short lines from the oldest book Hindus possess, the Rig Veda, addressed to the light of the sun. Most Hindus have heard both all their lives; fewer could say what they mean.
Neither is hard to understand, and both become richer once you do.
Om, three sounds and a silence
Om is pronounced as three sounds that flow into one another: A, U and M. The mouth opens for A, rounds for U and closes for M, so the syllable moves from the back of the throat to the closed lips.
The Mandukya Upanishad, the shortest of the major Upanishads, builds its whole teaching on these three sounds:
Om, this syllable is all this. (Mandukya Upanishad 1)
The text maps the sounds to three states we all know. A is the waking state, in which we face outward to the world. U is the dreaming state, turned inward to the mind. M is deep sleep, where there is neither world nor dream, only a peaceful unknowing. Each of these is a "quarter" of the Self.
The fourth quarter is the one that matters. After the M has died away there is silence, and the Upanishad names this silence turiya, "the fourth". It is not a sound; it is what the sounds were pointing at, the pure awareness in which waking, dreaming and sleep all appear. When you chant Om properly, the silence at the end is not the end of the mantra. It is the mantra.
This is why almost every Vedic mantra, and most later ones, open with Om. If Om is the sound of the whole, placing it first dedicates whatever follows to the whole. It is also a practical device: the long, settling syllable gathers breath and attention before the words that follow.
The Gayatri mantra
The verse known as the Gayatri comes from the Rig Veda, hymn 3.62, verse 10, and is attributed to the sage Vishvamitra. As chanted today it is preceded by Om and by three short words called the vyahritis:
Om bhur bhuvah svah
tat savitur varenyam
bhargo devasya dhimahi
dhiyo yo nah prachodayat
A plain translation of the Rig Vedic lines:
We meditate on the adorable splendour of the divine Savitr; may he inspire our thoughts.
There is no request for wealth, long life or victory, which is unusual in the Rig Veda. The mantra asks for one thing only: that our dhi, our understanding, be set in motion by the light. The verb prachodayat means to impel, to set going; the prayer is for a mind that is awake.
The verse is written in the metre called gayatri, three lines of eight syllables each, and takes its common name from the metre rather than from any deity. Over time the metre was personified as the goddess Gayatri, whom many families worship in that form. The mantra is traditionally counted as twenty-four syllables, which is why varenyam is often sung with an extra beat as vareniyam.
Bhur, bhuvah, svah, and who Savitr is
The three vyahritis, "utterances", set the scene before the verse begins. In their oldest sense they name the three worlds of Vedic cosmology: bhur, the earth; bhuvah, the middle region of air and sky; svah, the heaven of light beyond. Chanting them is like unfolding a map of the whole universe before addressing the one who lights it. Teachers also read them inwardly, as body, breath and mind, so that the Gayatri asks for light at all three levels of our being.
Savitr is a Vedic name for the sun, but for a particular aspect of it. The word comes from a root meaning to impel or set in motion. Savitr is not the disc in the sky so much as the power behind it: the force that stirs the world awake each morning, makes seeds sprout and sends people to their work. In the Rig Veda he is golden-handed and golden-eyed, and everything that moves is said to move at his urging.
To meditate on the splendour of Savitr, then, is to meditate on the intelligence that sets all things going, and to ask that the same intelligence set our own minds going. The visible sun is the symbol; the Gayatri is addressed to what it symbolises.
When and how to chant
The traditional times are the sandhyas, the three junctions of the day: dawn, noon and dusk. At these hours the sun is at a threshold, and the Gayatri, which is a prayer to the light, is thought most fitting. The daily rite built around it is called sandhyavandana, and for many Hindu men it begins at the sacred thread ceremony, the upanayana, when a boy first receives the mantra from his father or guru.
For centuries the mantra was taught only to initiated boys of the upper castes. From the nineteenth century onwards, reform movements such as the Arya Samaj, and later the Gayatri Parivar, argued that it belongs to everyone, and today it is chanted by women and men of every background. Families differ on this; most teachers now say simply that whoever chants it with reverence may do so.
Before breakfast, after a wash, facing east if you can, is the classic setting; if that is impossible, any quiet moment is better than none.
Japa and the mala
Repeating a mantra is called japa. It can be done aloud (vachika), in a whisper (upamshu) or silently in the mind (manasa); tradition ranks the silent form highest, but beginners usually find a soft whisper easiest to sustain.
A mala, a string of 108 beads with one larger bead called the meru standing outside the circle, keeps the count. Hold it in the right hand, draped over the middle finger, and move the beads with the thumb; the index finger, associated with the ego, is kept clear. Begin at the bead next to the meru, chant the mantra once per bead, and when you arrive back at the meru, stop. For a second round, turn the mala and go back the way you came rather than crossing the meru. Why 108? Explanations vary and none is final; what matters is that the number is settled.
A full round of 108 takes ten to fifteen minutes. On busy days chant it eleven times, or three, or once with full attention. Pronunciation matters more than speed; learn it by ear from someone who knows it well, and let the three lines breathe, with a small pause at the end of each.
What regular chanting is said to cultivate
The Gita says, "Among metres I am the Gayatri" (Bhagavad Gita 10.35). The tradition holds that steady japa of the Gayatri purifies the mind, settles the attention and sharpens the intellect, which is exactly what the words themselves ask for. Those who have chanted it for years describe something less grand and more useful: a daily moment in which the mind is pointed at the light rather than at its own worries, which over time becomes a place one can return to.
A simple way to begin
Learn the mantra by listening, not reading, until you can say it without the words in front of you. Tomorrow at dawn, or as near to dawn as life allows, sit facing the window, chant Om three times, letting the silence after each one last, and then chant the Gayatri three times slowly. Sit for a minute in the quiet afterwards. Add a mala when three feels too few.