[Advaita-l] Re: A Translation

Vidyasankar Sundaresan svidyasankar at hotmail.com
Tue Oct 21 19:53:33 CDT 2003


>Can anybody help me with the meaning of this mantra?
>
>AUM
>DEVKINANDANAYE VIDMAHE
>VASUDEVAYE DHI-MAHI
>TAN NO KRISHNAH PRACHOTDAYAT
>AUM

It should be
devakInandanAya vidmahe
vAsudevAya dhImahi
tan naH kRShNaH pracodayAt

The "~H" in "naH" is to be pronounced with a plosive release of the breath 
at the end, immediately followed by the "k" of kRShNa. The "~H" in kRShNaH 
is often converted to an -f sound because of the p that follows in the next 
word, pracodayAt. It means, "we meditate on the son of Devaki, to know 
Vasudeva; may he, Krishna, inspire us."

This is a formulaic mantra on kRShNa, modeled on the vedic sAvitrI mantra. 
Ideally it should be in the gAyatrI meter, with eight syllables per line, 
but more often than not, deviations occur. In this case, the first line has 
ten syllables.

Vidyasankar

_________________________________________________________________
Send instant messages to anyone on your contact list with  MSN Messenger 
6.0.  Try it now FREE!  http://msnmessenger-download.com



More information about the Advaita-l mailing list