Sandhyavandanam is a daily ritual of prayer and worship enjoined on the traditional Hindu, performed at the sandhya, the "junctions" or transitional periods of the day, classically at dawn, noon and dusk. The name means "salutation to the sandhya," and the rite marks the turning-points of the day with an offering of worship to the sun and to the divine light, a daily obligation for those, particularly among the "twice-born" communities, who have received the sacred thread at initiation. Its performance is regarded as a fundamental religious duty, a discipline that structures the day around the remembrance of the divine.
The rite combines several elements: the ritual sipping and sprinkling of water for purification, the control of the breath, the offering of water to the sun, and above all the repeated recitation of the Gayatri mantra, the venerable Vedic verse addressed to the divine solar light, praying that it may illumine the worshipper's understanding. The Gayatri is among the most sacred of all Hindu mantras, and its repetition is the heart of the sandhya worship, binding the daily rite to the oldest layer of the tradition's scripture.