In the study, the effect of the Gayatri Mantra playing for 24 hr on microbial quality of air was examined in 12 rooms of scientists of the ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar, India willing to participate in the study and in 7 empty classroom/ examination hall lying vacant since March 2020 due to COVID-19. Of the empty rooms, 6 were used as the control for the first two days, then after a week, all rooms were also used to detect the effect of playing the Gayatri Mantra. A total of 31 bacterial species of medical importance were isolated and identified in the air of the rooms. After playing the Gayatri Mantra in Raag Bhairvi for 24 h bacterial count significantly decreased in rooms inhabited by vegetarian (OR 24, CI 95: 0.00-0.88; p, 0.036) than in rooms occupied by non-vegetarians. Rooms occupied by vegetarians. The effect of Gayatri Mantra in the empty room had no significant difference but bacterial count reduced. Bacterial counts of rooms occupied by non-vegetarian increased significantly post Mantra playing. Bacterial counts of rooms occupied by non-vegetarians and empty rooms varied significantly (OR 18, p, 0.02, CI 95: 0.00 – 0.79). Empty rooms with and without mantra not varied significantly for the reduction of the bacterial count. Paenibacillus spp. was not detected in any of the 12 rooms occupied by the scientists/ staff but in 3 of the 7 empty rooms (p, 0.01) it was detected even without playing any mantra. It indicated that daily disturbance in the environment may be detrimental to the survival of Paenibacillus spp. After playing Mantra P. alvei, P. cookie, P. lautus were detected in 5 of the seven rooms occupied by Non-vegetarians, while P. pantothenicus continued to be present in three of the vacant rooms even after playing the Mantra. Paenibacillus spp. bacteria are known for their probiotic potential and its significance in the study is not clear. It seems that the Gayatri mantra has some enrichment effect on Paenibacillus spp. but a detrimental effect on other microbes.

1. Dr. Bhoj R. Singh, Dr. Vinodh Kumar O.R., Dr. R. Karthikeyan, Dr.
Akanksha Yadav and Dr. D. K. Sinha
Division of Epidemiology, ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research
Institute, Izatnagar-243 122, India
Effect of Gayatri Mantra Playing on
Microbial load in room air
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3. “Mantra is not a mere collection of words. It is a compounded set of
words pregnant with enormous significance. It emanates from the
inner power of man. Filled with such power, the mantra, when it is
pronounced properly, brings out the divine power in man. The
vibrations produced by the utterance of the mantra, uniting with the
cosmic nāda (primal sound) in the universe, become one with the
Universal Consciousness. It is these cosmic vibrations, which
assumed the form of the Veda (sacred revelations of spiritual
knowledge).”
(Source: Sri Sathya Sai Speaks, vol 17.25: October, 01, 1984)
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4.  Our great Rishis selected the words of various
Mantras and arranged them so meticulously that
they not only convey meaning but also create
specific power through their utterance.
 The Gayatri mantra is one of the holiest Vedic
mantras, which is a part of the Rig Veda.
 Gayatri mantra’s meaning is "May the Almighty
God illuminate our intellect to lead us along the
righteous path".
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5.  The Gayatri mantra effect was shown to play role on human
mental capacity (Pathade and Abhang, 2014) as well as the
plant health (Karnick, 1983).
 The critiques often cite the antimicrobial values of herbs
included in Havan Samagri to nullify the effect of chanting
mantra.
 The Yagnya performed with chanting of Gayatri mantra has
shown to reduce particulate matter and electromagnetic
radiations and also increased the antimicrobial activity against
human pathogens present in the environment (Singh and Singh,
2018).
 The role of mantra on microorganism growth and survival had
been studied a little only.
 The present study was conducted to test the hypothesis that
playing of Gayatri mantra has bactericidal and fungicidal effect.
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6. Period of Experiment: 21st to 29th Nov. 2020
Mantra Played:
Gayatri Mantra in Raga Bhairvi
(https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1yGK
pBPbpH7HQg3abi3rZYk-WH_k5WqGC)
Played in Media player on Computer
Sound intensity at the placement of plates: 44-50 db (decibels)
Materials & Methods
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7. Selection of the rooms for testing
1. 12 rooms of scientists of the Institute willing to participate in
the study and
2. 7 empty classroom/ examination hall lying vacant since
March 2020 due to COVID-19.
3. Of the empty rooms, 6 were used as control for first two days,
then after a week all rooms were also used to detect effect of
playing Gayatri Mantra.
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8. Methods used
Settle Plate method
Media used: Trypticase soy agar (Difco) for bacterial count and
Potato dextrose agar (Difco) for fungal count
• Procedure:
Microbial Load determination in Control rooms:
• After opening the room in the morning fan was run for 10
min and at 4 pm six plates each for bacterial and fungal
count were kept without lid at central place of the room and
then after 30 min lid was applied on the plates.
• Mask and gloves were put on by the person handling the
plates.
• Plates for bacterial count were incubated at 370C and at 200C
for fungal count for 24 h and 72 h, respectively.
• Colonies were counted using hand held counter with
magnifying lens.
•
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9.  After playing Mantra in Rag Bhairavi for 24 h in the test
rooms, mantra was made off, plates were kept without
lid at central place of the room and then after 30 min lid
was applied on the plates.
 Rest procedure of microbial load determination was
same as done in control rooms.
Test rooms
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10.  Pre and post Mantra colony counts for each room were
converted into count per cubic meter of air using
Omeliansky formula (Omeliansky, 1940):
 N = 5a × 10000/ (bt), where N = colony forming unit per cubic
meter of air (cfu/m3), a = number of colonies per petridish, b =
surface area of petridish (90 mm diameter) in cm2, and t =
time of exposure in minutes
 N=5*CFU*(10000)/(3.14*4.5*4.5*30)
 Isolated bacterial species were confirmed Biochemical tests
and Paenibacillus spp. through 16s rRNA gene sequencing.
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11. Statistical method
 Average and standard deviation for microbial counts in each
room was calculated.
 For determining the significance of difference in count of
microbes (bacteria and fungi) before and after playing the
Gayatri Mantra, ANOVA was used.
 On the basis of food habit of occupants, rooms were divided
into Vegetarian's (5) and non-vegetarian’s (7) to compare
using Chi-sqaure test (Snedecor and Cochran, 1967).
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12. Results
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13.  Acinetobacter calcoaceticus
 Acinetobacter lowffii
 Actinobacillus spp.
 Aerococcus spp.
 Aeromonas salmonicida
 Alcaligenes denitrificans
 Alcaligenes faecalis
 Arsenophonus nasaonia
 Bacillus cereus
 Bacillus circulans
 Bacillus mycoides
 Bacillus sphaericus
 Bacillus stearothermophilus group I
List of Medically important bacterial spp.
isolated & identified (31)
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14.  Enterobacter aerogenes
 Enterococcus faecalis
 Erwinia ananas
 Geobacillus stearothermophilus
 Kocuria rosea
 Micrococcus spp.
 Paenibacillus pantothenticus
 Paenibacillus alvei
 Paenibacillus cookie
 Paenibacillus lautus
 Proteus mirabilis
 Staphylococcus capitis ssp. urealyticus
 Staphylococcus caseolyticus
 Staphylococcus epidermidis
 Staphylococcus haemolyticus
 Staphylococcus intermedius
 Staphylococcus sacchrolyticus
 Staphylococcus saprophyticus
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15. Species of Paenibacillus identified and
confirmed through 16s rRNA gene sequencing
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16. Box &Whisker plot showing bacterial count
in different rooms at 0h & 24h
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17.  A total of 31 bacterial species of medical importance were isolated
and identified in room air of Institute.
 Bacterial count significantly got decreased in rooms inhabited by
vegetarians (OR 24, CI 95: 0.00-0.88) (p, 0.036) than in rooms
occupied by non-vegetarians after playing the Gayatri Mantra for
24 h.
 Rooms occupied by vegetarians and empty had no significant
difference but bacterial count reduced in both after playing the
Gayatri Mantra for 24 h..
 Bacterial counts of rooms occupied by non-vegetarians increased
significantly after playing the Gayatri Mantra for 24 h.
 Bacterial counts of rooms occupied by non-vegetarians and empty
had varied significantly (OR 18, p, 0.02, CI 95: 0.00 – 0.79) after
playing the Gayatri Mantra for 24 h, it was more in rooms
occupied by non-vegetarians.
 Empty rooms with and without mantra not varied significantly for
reduction of bacterial count after playing the Gayatri Mantra for
24 h.
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18.  Paenibacillus spp. was not detected in any of the 12 rooms
occupied by the scientists/ staff before playing the Gayatri
Mantra but in 3 of the 7 empty rooms (p, 0.01) it was detected
even before playing the mantra. It indicated that daily
disturbance in environment may be detrimental for survival of
Paenibacillus spp.
 After playing the Mantra P. alvei, P. cookie, P. lautus were
detected in 5 of the seven rooms occupied by non-vegetarians,
while P. pantothenicus continued to be present in three of the
vacant rooms after playing the Gayatri Mantra for 24 h..
 Paenibacillus spp. bacteria are known for their probiotic
potential and its significance in the study is not clear. It seems
that the Gayatri mantra has some enrichment effect on the
bacteria.
 Paenibacillus spp. was not isolated from the rooms of
vegetarians.
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19. Box &Whisker plot showing fungal count
in different rooms at 0h & 24h
ANOVA revealed significant (0.05) reduction in fungal count after playing the
Gayatri Mantra for 24 h.
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20. Though it may be too early to claim but based on the results of
present study conclusion may be drawn that
 playing of the Gayatri mantra improve the microbial quality of
the aerial environment for human living by decreasing the
microbial load in the air, and
 also through increasing the number of probiotic bacteria of
Paenibacillus spp.
 Rooms occupied by non-vegetarian had bad impact of playing
the Gayatri Mantra as there was significant increase in
bacterial count in the air.
CONCLUSION
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21.  The present work was a preliminary study and important
deficiencies are:
 Number of rooms was just 19
 Variation was there in size of the rooms selected for study,
 Impact of movement, talking etc. in occupied rooms was ignored,
 Impact of different intensity (dB) and different duration of playing
Gayatri mantra on bactericidal and fungicidal effect has not been
evaluated,
 Fungal counts of rooms occupied by vegetarian and non-vegetarian
was not done.
 Impact of other mantra like the Mahamrityunjaya mantra or just
another music or sound has not been used as control.
“Hope in future study we will take care of these points”
Weaknesses of the Study
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22.  Karnick, C.R. (1983). Effect of mantras on human beings and plants. Anc. Sci.
Life. 2(3):141 -147. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22556970
 Omeliansky, V.L. (1940). Manual in Microbiology. USSR academy of sciences,
Moscow, Leningrad.
 Pathade, G.R., and Abhang, P. (2014). Scientific study of Vedic Knowledge
Agnihotra. Bharatiya Bouddh Sampada A Q Sci Res J Vijnana Bharati. 2014;(43rd
44th):18-27.
 Singh, R. and Singh, S. K. (2018). Gayatri Mantra Chanting Helps Generate
Higher Antimicrobial Activity of Yagnya’s Smoke. J. YAGYA RES. 1(1): 9-14.
 Snedecor, G.W. and Cocharan, W.G. (1967). In: Statistical methods, 6th ed. Oxford
and IBH Publishing Co., New Delhi.
References
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23. Thanks
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