RENO, NEVADA, August 15, 2007: Hindu chaplain Rajan Zed of Reno will deliver a prayer in Sanskrit to the California State Senate on Aug. 27. He gave the first Hindu prayer before the U.S. Senate on July 12. On May 7, he gave the first Hindu prayer before the Nevada Senate. California Senate records go back to 1992 and there’s no record of a Hindu prayer. He will recite from Rig Veda. He plans to start and end the prayer with “OM,” which he described as the mystical syllable containing the universe. Reciting from Brahadaranyakopanisad, he plans to say “Asato ma sad gamaya, Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya, Mrtyor mamrtam gamaya,” which roughly translates as “Lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality.” His prayer in the US Senate had to be in English.
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