गायत्रीव्याख्याThe Gāyatrī explained
Verse 216
त्र्यक्षरात्मकतारेण परेशः प्रतिपाद्यते । पाता हर्त्ता च संस्रष्टा यो देवः प्रकृतेः परः ॥ २१६ ॥
tryakṣarātmakatārēṇa parēśaḥ pratipādyatē | pātā harttā ca saṁsraṣṭā yō dēvaḥ prakṛtēḥ paraḥ || 216 ||
Translation
The tāra of three syllables makes known the Supreme Lord: the god who protects, withdraws and creates, and who is beyond prakṛti.
Word by word
- tryakṣara
- of three syllables
- ātmaka
- whose nature is
- tārēṇa
- by the tāra (oṁ)
- parēśaḥ
- (pareśaḥ) the Supreme Lord
- pratipādyatē
- is made known
- pātā
- the protector
- harttā
- (hartā) the withdrawer
- ca
- and
- saṁsraṣṭā
- the creator
- yaḥ
- (yaḥ) who
- dēvaḥ
- (devaḥ) the god
- prakṛtēḥ
- (prakṛteḥ) prakṛti
- paraḥ
- (paraḥ) beyond
Meaning
The meaning of oṁ. Its three letters, a, u and m, express the Supreme Self (pareśa) in his three works: protecting the world, taking it back into himself (hartṛ, "the one who takes away", not one who destroys in our sense), and bringing it forth. He is "deva", the shining one, and "beyond prakṛti": the ṭīkā reads para as both "far beyond" and "highest". Prakṛti, nature, is his own power, yet he is not limited by its manifestation.
Commentary
Hariharānanda Bhāratī’s Sanskrit commentary, translated
First he states the meaning of the praṇava and the meaning of the vyāhṛtis in two verses, "tryakṣarātmaka" and the rest. The supreme Lord (pareśa), the supreme Self, the god (deva, the one in whom shining and the other acts rest), who is the protector (pātā) of the world, its destroyer (hartā) and its creator (saṁsraṣṭā), and who is beyond (para), far beyond or highest above, prakṛti: that god is expressed, made known, by the tāra of three syllables, the praṇava made of the three letters a, u and m. Because the god expressed by the praṇava is the self of the three worlds (trilokātmā), of the nature of the three worlds, and stands pervading the three guṇas, sattva and the rest, for that reason Brahman, made of the universe, whose form is the universe, is expressed by the three vyāhṛtis, bhūḥ and the rest, which name the three worlds.