Protect the Speaker, Protect the Listener
The story
The verse is a string of short requests that all begin with "ava", protect: protect me, the speaker, the listener, the giver, the one who holds the teaching, the student. Then it asks for protection from every direction, front, back, north, south, above and below. It reads like a teacher and a class asking for help before the lesson starts.
अव वक्तारम्। अव श्रोतारम्॥
ava vaktāram | ava śrotāram ||
Ganapati Atharvashirsha, verse 3 in the common numbering; our translation
The same moment, today
A father sits at the kitchen table to teach his daughter how to drive a stick shift. He draws the gears on a napkin, but his words come out tangled and sharp. She's already tense and waiting to be corrected. Both of them want it to go well, and neither can manage it alone. If he can't explain it calmly, she can't learn, and if she stops listening, his effort is wasted.
This line asks for help for both people at that table. It doesn't only ask Ganesha to look after the person praying. It asks him to protect the one who speaks and the one who listens, as two people doing different work. That's an old Indian way of looking at a lesson: it fails if either side fails. Ganesha is the god of learning and of beginnings, and the hymn is often recited before study starts. The English here is our own plain rendering of the Sanskrit, ava vaktaram, ava shrotaram.
The lesson
Next time you're explaining something, or being taught, think about the other person's half of the work. It's usually harder than it looks from your side.
Where this comes from
A hymn children learn by heart
The Ganapati Atharvashirsha is about a page of Sanskrit. Tradition attaches it to the Atharva Veda, but scholars date it to about the 16th or 17th century, and its home is Maharashtra. Being late hasn't made it any less loved. Children learn it by heart, and it's recited at the start of study, which suits a verse that asks the same protection for the teacher and the student.
Teaching and learning take two people, and either one can let the lesson drop.
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