Ganesh Gayatri (Ekadantaya)
Overview
The Ganesh Gayatri is a short three-line Sanskrit verse addressed to Ganesh, built in the same call-and-response pattern as the well-known Gayatri Mantra to Savitr: a deity is named, the reciter states an intention to know and meditate on that deity, and closes with a request to be guided or inspired. Here the deity is invoked through two epithets — Ekadanta, “the one-tusked one,” and Vakratunda, “the curved-trunk one” — both familiar names for Ganesh describing his form.
Origin and source
This verse comes from the Ganapati Atharvashirsha, a short Upanishad belonging to the Ganapatya tradition, the stream of devotion centered on Ganesh as the supreme deity. The Atharvashirsha includes a Gayatri passage for Ganesh built on the same three-line template used for many other deity-specific Gayatris, with “Ekadantaya” supplying the first-line epithet in this instance.
The name Ekadanta, “one-tusked,” refers to the widely told story of how Ganesh came to have a single tusk — in its best-known telling, he broke off one tusk himself to use as a writing implement while transcribing the Mahabharata for the sage Vyasa. The story circulates in many versions across Puranic literature, and this page does not attach it to one specific chapter or verse.
Word-by-word meaning
| Sanskrit | IAST | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ॐ | oṃ | the sacred syllable Om, with which Vedic verses of this kind traditionally open |
| एकदन्ताय | ekadantāya | to the one-tusked one (dative of Ekadanta — eka, "one," + danta, "tooth, tusk" — an epithet of Ganesh) |
| विद्महे | vidmahe | we know, may we come to know (Vedic first-person plural) |
| वक्रतुण्डाय | vakratuṇḍāya | to the curved-trunk one (dative of Vakratunda — vakra, "curved," + tuṇḍa, "trunk, snout" — another epithet of Ganesh) |
| धीमहि | dhīmahi | may we meditate, may we contemplate (Vedic first-person plural) |
| तत् | tat | that (correlative pronoun, pointing back to the one just named) |
| नः | naḥ | us, to us |
| दन्तिः | dantiḥ | the tusked one (nominative, a further epithet of Ganesh) |
| प्रचोदयात् | pracodayāt | may he impel, may he inspire, may he set in motion (causative optative) |
Meaning of the whole
Read straight through, the verse says: “Om, may we know the one-tusked one, may we meditate on the curved-trunk one; may that tusked one inspire us.” The first line names Ganesh as Ekadanta and states an intention to know him; the second names him again as Vakratunda and states an intention to meditate on him; the third asks the one just described — referred to here as Dantih, “the tusked one” — to impel or inspire the reciter onward. Nothing in the verse asks for a specific outcome. Its structure is a movement from naming, to knowing, to an appeal for guidance.
How it is traditionally recited
Like other Gayatri-format verses, this one is recited as a short, self-contained unit — on its own, at the start of worship directed to Ganesh, or as part of a longer recitation of the Ganapati Atharvashirsha. It’s worth noting that this same three-line template, with a different first-line epithet, also appears elsewhere in this batch of pages as part of a longer composite recitation — a reminder that the Gayatri form itself is a shared template: many deities and forms have their own Gayatri built on this same three-line pattern, with the deity’s name substituted into the opening line. Two verses following this template are not duplicates of each other or a mistake — they are distinct, separately practiced recitations that happen to share a structure, the same way the verse “Ganesh Gayatri (Gananayakaya)” and “Gajananam Bhuta Ganadhi Sevitam” also each address Ganesh through their own separate forms and epithets.