The verse every Indian schoolchild once knew, the teacher honoured as the whole trinity and the supreme itself.
The teacher, as Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva in one Pan-Indian; source in the Guru Gītā Devotion
The mantra
गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विष्णुर्गुरुर्देवो महेश्वरः गुरुरेव परं ब्रह्म तस्मै श्री गुरवे नमः
gurur brahmā gurur viṣṇur gurur devo maheśvaraḥ gurur eva paraṁ brahma tasmai śrī gurave namaḥ
Meaning
The teacher is Brahmā, the teacher is Viṣṇu, the teacher is the lord Maheśvara; the teacher is himself the supreme Brahman, to that honoured teacher, salutations.
In the tradition
Respect for the teacher is not flattery here but epistemology: the tradition holds that knowledge crosses from living being to living being, and the verse simply states the debt. On Guru Pūrṇimā, students still chant it to teachers who taught them decades ago.
Sources & further reading
- Guru Gītā , within the Viśvāsāra Tantra / Skanda Purāṇa corpus (the verse among the guru-stotra hymns)
- The guru-śiṣya tradition , the living teacher-student lineages of India