The Divine Mother
Names, hymns, dialogues and commentaries on the Divine Mother.
Scripture and storyDevī Gītā, Lalitā Sahasranāma, Tripurā Rahasya — Jñāna-khaṇḍa
- Devī GītāTen chapters from the Devī Bhāgavata in which the Goddess appears to the gods as a blaze of light and teaches Himālaya, king of the mountains: that she is the one Self, the ways of yoga and of knowledge, and how she is to be worshipped.
- Lalitā SahasranāmaThe thousand names of Lalitā, the Goddess as the playful Mother, recited in the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa by Hayagrīva to the sage Agastya. Each name here comes with its meaning, from "the auspicious Mother" to her seat in the Śrī Cakra.
- Tripurā Rahasya — Jñāna-khaṇḍa"The secret of Tripurā": Dattātreya answers Paraśurāma's questions on the Self through twenty-two chapters of stories — a princess who wakes her husband, a city inside a hill — on the Goddess as the consciousness in which the world appears.
Poems to the MotherMūka Pañcaśatī, Umā Sahasram
- Mūka PañcaśatīFive hundred verses to Kāmākṣī of Kāñcī, held in the mind, bowed to at her feet, praised aloud, received in her glance and rested in her smile, the poem the tradition says a mute boy sang by her grace.
- Umā SahasramA thousand verses to Umā, the Mother, in forty hymns of twenty-five: her smile, her form from head to foot, her presence in all things and in the body as Kuṇḍalinī, and the poet's own prayers to her.
Ādi Śaṅkarācārya: hymns to the GoddessĀnandalaharī, Annapūrṇāṣṭakam, Bhavānī bhujaṅgaṃ…
- ĀnandalaharīTwenty verses to Bhavānī, "the wave of bliss": Brahmā with four mouths, Śiva with five and Śeṣa with a thousand cannot praise her, so who can? Closing on her at play with her friends in a lotus lake in spring.
- AnnapūrṇāṣṭakamVerses to Annapūrṇā, the Mother who feeds the holy city of Kāśī, each ending with a beggar's cry, "give me alms." The last turns it round: "my mother is Pārvatī, my father Śiva, my family all who love him."
- Bhavānī bhujaṅgaṃSeventeen verses to Bhavānī in the bhujaṅgaprayāta metre that follow her as the inner power rising through the six centres of the body, from the base to the thousand-petalled lotus where she drinks the nectar of the moon.
- BhramarāmbāṣṭakamEight verses to Bhramarāmbā of Śrīśailam, the Mother who once took the form of a bee — her red-tinged eyes, the pearl at her nose, the compassion in her glance — each ending "on her who dwells at Śrīśaila I meditate."
- DevībhujaṅgastotramTwenty-eight verses to the Goddess in the bhujaṅgaprayāta metre: her throne held up by Brahmā and the guardians, bow and noose in her hands, her seat hidden behind five sheaths within the body, and her play in its centres as she rises.
All 20 textsThe first 5 only
- DevīcatuḥṣaṣṭyupacārapūjāstotramThe sixty-four services of a royal worship offered to the Goddess in verse and in the mind: waking her at dawn with singing, a jewelled temple, a palanquin, a throne, bath, garments, ornaments, food and lamps.
- GaurīdaśakamTen verses to Gaurī, the mountain's daughter with lotus eyes, who makes and unmakes the worlds as play and whom yogis search for within themselves. With a closing verse on what a daily dawn recital gives.
- KalyāṇavṛṣṭistavaḥSixteen verses asking the Mother for a "rain of blessing" — service at her feet, tears at her sight, her form like ten thousand suns — whose opening syllables spell out, letter by letter, the fifteen-syllable mantra of Śrī Vidyā.
- KanakadhārāstotramEighteen verses to Lakṣmī, goddess of wealth, dwelling on her sidelong glance — a bee settling on Viṣṇu's dark body — and asking that it fall on the one who prays. "The shower of gold": the rain it is remembered as bringing a poor woman.
- Lalitā pañca ratnamFive verses for first light, remembering Lalitā the playful Goddess part by part — her face, her arms with the sugarcane bow and flower arrows, her feet — with a closing verse on what the morning recital gives.
- LalitātriśatībhāṣyamHis commentary on the Lalitā Triśatī, the three hundred names of the Goddess Lalitā that the sage Hayagrīva teaches Agastya — twenty names for each of the fifteen syllables of her mantra — explained one by one.
- MātṛkāpuṣpamālāSeventeen verses of worship in the mind: the Mother pictured on her jewel island in the ocean of nectar and offered throne, bath and garland in thought. Their opening syllables spell out her fifteen-syllable mantra, a garland of letters.
- MīnākṣīpañcaratnamFive verses to Mīnākṣī, the fish-eyed Goddess of Madurai, bright as countless suns, waited on by Sarasvatī and Lakṣmī, herself the sound that is Brahman — each ending "I bow always to Mīnākṣī, ocean of compassion."
- MīnākṣīstotramEight verses to Mīnākṣī of Madurai, daughter of the Pāṇḍya king Malayadhvaja, as the Goddess of Śrī Vidyā seated at Śiva's left, her raised hand saying "do not fear" — each ending "protect me, Mother Mīnā."
- NāmaratnanavaratnamālikāA garland of nine gems: nine verses picturing the supreme Goddess in her ornaments and weapons — the noose, the goad, the bow, the crowns of gods pressed into a footstool for her feet — with a verse on reciting them.
- ŚāradābhujaṃgaprayātāṣṭakamEight verses to Śāradā, goddess of learning, at her shrine on the Tuṅgabhadrā, in the bhujaṅgaprayāta metre: the gesture of knowledge in her hand, her glance wet with compassion. Each ends "I worship Mother Śāradā without cease."
- SaundaryalaharīA hundred verses to the Goddess, "the wave of beauty": Śiva can act only joined to Śakti; her power in the body's centres and in the Śrī Cakra; then her form praised from crown to feet. The hymn at the heart of Śrī Vidyā.
- TripurasundarīmānasapūjāstotramA hundred and twenty-seven verses of worship in the mind, offered by one who begins by confessing he has no devotion, no detachment and no skill in meditation — and so builds the Goddess an ocean, an island and a palace out of words.
- TripurasundarīvedapādastotramA hundred and ten verses to Tripurasundarī, each ending with a line lifted whole from the Veda, so that the oldest scripture itself completes every verse of praise to the Goddess.
- TripurasundaryaṣṭakamEight verses to Tripurasundarī, the Goddess as beauty of the three worlds, walking in the kadamba grove with a golden lute, dark as a rain cloud, the wives of the gods for her handmaids — each ending "in her I take refuge."