The Veda Samhitās has been the foundation for all aspects of Hindu or Indian Culture since ancient days. These books are vast—Rigveda Samhitā alone has about ten thousand verses. Thus persons who read them entirely everyday are necessarily small in number. Thus even from ancient days, at least three thousand years ago, a small subset of the Veda mantras were chosen by our savants so that they could be recited at least once a day by all persons. Later on all these mantras were embedded in a ritual so that the attention of the worshippers could become more focused and not wander when reciting the mantras. The mantras and the associated ritual came to be labeled as Sandhya Worship. Sandhi means a junction, typically the conjunction of night and day. Thus the recitation should be done thrice daily in the morning dawn before sunrise, at noon and in the evening twilight.

The core part of the worship is the repetition or japa and meditation on the Light of the supernal Sun, Savitŗ or on the Goddess Sāvitri using the famous mantra popularly known as Gāyatri occurring originally in Rigveda Samhitā, third mandala, sūkta 62 and verse 10, i.e., RV (3.62.10) revealed to the sage Vishwāmitra.

The details of the Sandhya worship vary from community to community and also on the Veda to which the doer belongs. We give below the mantrās commonly used by most persons. The basic program has four steps. Persons who do not find time to do all the steps can try to perform the step 3, namely the repetition of the Gāyatri mantra.

Four steps of the Sandhya worship:

1. Purification of the mind and body
2. Invocation of the God Savitŗ or the Godddess Gāyatrī
3. The main mantra of the Gāyatrī and its repetition or japa
4. Conclusion of contemplation

Back to Top