The Gayatri Panjara, AKA the Savitri Panjara, is a hymn to Gayatri, five-headed wife of Brahma and goddess of the Vedas. Here is the preamble to the hymn given in this excerpt from the Narada Purana:
The sage of the Panjara is So'ham, the metre is vikriti. The great Hamsa is the deity and the great Brahman etc. are the deities, its utility and application is for the attainment of virtue, wealth, desire and salvation.
My question is, what does it mean to say that the sage who heard the Gayatri Panjara from the gods is "So'ham"?
For those who don't know, So'ham is Sanskrit for "I am That". It's an expression taken from the Isha Upanishad, and in Adi Shankaracharya's philosophy of Advaita it's taken to be a central insight revealing the individual soul and Brahman as one and the same.
But why would "I am That" be listed as the seer of a mantra? Who was the actual seer of the Gayatri Panjara? This forum post claims that it "was given to Lord Brahma at the time of creation of universe by Lord Narayana Himself". So is Vishnu the one being described as "So'ham", since he is the Supreme Soul or Paramatma?
Does anyone know if there are any other scriptures which discuss the seer of the Gayatri Panjara?
