Which Sanskrit mantra is traditionally in the 24-syllable gayatri meter?

The Gayatri Mantra is traditionally composed in the 24-syllable Gayatri meter. Its core verse is arranged as three pādas, or metrical lines, of eight syllables each, and it is also known as the Savitrī Mantra.

The verse appears as Rigveda 3.62.10 and is dedicated to Savitr, a Vedic solar deity. Tradition attributes it to the sage Vishvamitra. In common recitation, the mantra is often preceded by Om and the three mahāvyāhṛtis—bhūr, bhuvaḥ, and svaḥ—but those introductory words are not part of the 24 syllables of the core verse.

There is a technical wrinkle behind the familiar number. The received Sanskrit text can be scanned as 23 syllables in one pāda, leading some scholars to describe it as a shortened, or nichṛd, Gayatri. Traditional teaching nevertheless treats the mantra as the paradigmatic 24-syllable Gayatri verse, sometimes using a reconstructed pronunciation or lengthening a sound in recitation.

The Gayatri meter is a poetic form, while “Gayatri” can also refer specifically to this famous mantra and, in Hindu tradition, to its personified goddess. Other deity-specific Gayatri mantras imitate the same metrical pattern.