ഗുരു ഗായത്രീ മന്ത്രഃ

The Gayatri addressed to the teacher, in the pattern all such verses follow: let us know Gurudeva, let us meditate on the supreme brahman, and may the guru impel us to it. The pattern belongs to the Vedic Gayatri and is filled here with two names in place of the sun's — Gurudeva in the first quarter and Parabrahman in the second — so that the object of the meditation and the person of the teacher are set in the two halves and then identified by the third. Verses of this shape exist for most deities and are used before recitation rather than as compositions in their own right; this one is said at the start of guru worship and on the full moon of Ashadha, which the tradition keeps as the teacher's day.