New Book Unravels Hidden Meanings in the Gayatri Mantra

NEW DELHI:
The holy Hindu devotional chant of Gayatri Mantra and the deep spiritual secrets it contains to help mankind achieve spiritual awakening and prosperity form the core of a new book launched here on Sunday.
Dr Indira Balachandran, a former professor at St Joseph’s College, Alappuzha, Kerala, says she has authored Gayatri Mantram: Sarvavedasaaram as an interpretative work to” take the common people to a field inaccessible to them”.
It is for the first time a woman has written a study and interpretation for the Gayatri Mantra.
“The privileged classes believed and forced others to believe that it was a sin for non- Brahmins and women to chant the Gayatri Mantra. Time has entered a phase which recognizes that this mantra, which was kept under wraps, is the common wealth of the family of man,” she says.
“There is no man-woman distinction in spirituality. India is the land where there lived sterling women who presented to the world impassioned poetry in the form of mantras.”
Dr Karan Singh M.P. released the book at a ceremony at the Kerala House yesterday. Jnanpith winner Dr Saty Vrat Shastri delivered the keynote address.
Gayatri Mantram: Sarvavedasaaram, which has 18 chapters, intends to impart comprehensive and complete knowledge about the devotional chant. The work is published both in Malayalam and Hindi.
Dr Indira Balachandran’s other eminent works include Kalidasanum Malayala Kavithayum, Kumaran Asanum Karunayum and Koodariyathe (novel).