Vedic origin of sandhyavandanam mantras

From the Bhakti List Archives

• October 23, 1998


Rajagopalan, Murli writes : 

"With regard to Nitya Karma, you (Sreemaan Muralidhar Rangawamy) mention
that
only the Gaayatri and the thirumantram are of Vedic origin.  Does this
mean
that all other mantrams like the gaayatri aavahana and gaayatri
udhvaasana
and several other mantras that occur in the sandhya vandanam (depending
on
the shaakha one belongs to) are all of pourANic origin?  Maybe what you
mean
is that of the mantras that we use for japam, only two are of Vedic
origin."

A question here : would not the mantras such as 
"apo hi SHtaa mayo bhuva:" be of Vedic origin also ? I believe this is
an aapri hymn of rg vedic origin.

The salutations to agni, mitra, and varuNa may also be of Vedic origin,
I think.

Could someone clarify this, please ?

Regards,

Sundar