We seek to know the One-Tusked.

We meditate upon the One whose trunk is curved.

May the Lord inspire and guide us, and awaken our minds.

Gaṇeśa is invoked at the start of every undertaking: he is Vighneśvara, lord of obstacles — the one who both sets them and removes them. First the mind meets the barrier; then the way through it opens.

This Gāyatrī is addressed to the intellect (buddhi): before knowledge can come, what clouds clarity must be cleared. Gaṇeśa is the patron of beginnings, of learning, and of writing.

The fruit (phala): a focused and clear mind, the removal of inner and outer obstacles, success in what is begun.

Son of Śiva and Pārvatī, leader of the gaṇas — Śiva's hosts; hence Gaṇa-īśa / Gaṇa-pati, “lord of the multitudes.” God of beginnings, wisdom, and writing; he is worshipped first.

The mantra's epithets paint his form: Ekadanta — “the one-tusked,” Vakratuṇḍa — “the curved-trunked,” Dantin — “the tusked one.”

In the Vedic recension (Taittirīya Āraṇyaka) this Gāyatrī opens with tatpuruṣāya … vakratuṇḍāya … tanno dantiḥ; the form with ekadantāya is later, Purāṇic.

When the sage Vyāsa dictated the Mahābhārata, a scribe was needed who could write without stopping. Gaṇeśa agreed — but in the heat of writing his pen broke. So he broke off his own tusk and went on, never interrupting the flow.

Thus he is Ekadanta — “the one-tusked.” The broken tusk is an image of sacrificing part of oneself for the wholeness of knowledge: a mind ready to give up the familiar in order to hold more.

In another account the tusk is lost in a clash with Paraśurāma at Śiva's door.

The mantra is set in Gāyatrī meter — three lines of eight syllables, twenty-four in all. The most contemplative of the Vedic meters.

A few places ask for attention, so that the Sanskrit truly sounds rather than is merely read: