the holiest verse of the Vedas, not to be uttered to ears profane, but to be recited only mentally. It is a short prayer to the sun, identified with the supreme being, and occurs in the 10th hymn of the 4th section of the 3rd ashtakā of the Sanhita of the Rigveda—Tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayāt, i.e. "We meditate on that excellent light of the divine sun; may he illuminate our minds."—Rigveda, iii., 4, 10. Such is the fear of profaning this text, that copyists of the Vedas often refrain from transcribing it both in the Sanhita and the Bhāsya.—Wilson, Vishnu Parāna, p. 122, note 13. This hymn, ascribed to Vishwamitra, is properly the only Gayatri; though, according to a system of the Tāntrikas, a number of mystical verses bear the same name. It is usually personified as a goddess, wife of Brahmā, and metaphorical mother of the first three castes.—Rosen's Rigveda Specimen, p. 13, London, 1830. [It appears to be the feminine of some obsolete word, gāyatra, derivable from gai, "to sing."]