Khila Kanda. Adhyaya 5, Brahmana 14. The Gayatri and its four feet
New to these pages?
Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.
Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.
Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.
The Gayatri rests upon truth
This Gayatri rests upon that fourth foot, the seen, world-surpassing foot. And that foot rests upon truth. The eye, indeed, is truth. For the eye is truth.
The Gayatri stands on its fourth foot (the sun), and that foot stands on truth; and truth here means the eye, because what the eye sees is trusted as true.
In the commentaries
Sankara grounds the fourth foot in truth (satya), and glosses truth as the eye, since seeing carries conviction over hearsay, so the whole Gayatri finally rests on truth.