Jai Guru Deva Om
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jai Guru Deva Om is a short Sanskrit phrase which appears in the song Across the Universe from The Beatles. The song was recorded in 1968 shortly before the Beatles flew to India to take part of a course. They wanted to study Yogi philosophy and transcendental meditation together with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
A rough translation of the phrase "Jai Guru Deva Om" is "Thank Guru Deva". With "Guru Dev" they meant Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, the guru of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The individual etymology of "Jai Guru Deva Om" looks like this:
- Jai or Jaya means "Victory" or "Success" but can also mean "Honour", "Greeting" or "Thanks"
- A Guru is a teacher
- Deva is a God. The accent lying on the "a" at the end of the word "Deva" is optional. In the song John Lennon deliberately chose to accent it to better fit the rhythm.
- Om or Aum is a sacred syllable in Dharmic religions
The phrase also appeared in a song by The Beach Boys, All This Is That.
