Umā Sahasram

He wanted to express his gratitude to the Mother by composing a thousand Sanskrit verses in her praise. He surrendered to Bhagavan and began the work after getting his permission. He chose a sacred day to complete the thousand verses. Unfortunately, he fell ill and could write only around seven hundred. The night before his self imposed deadline, he approached Bhagavan at Virupaksha cave with his problem. Bhagavan encouragingly reassured him, “Do not worry, I will come and sit with you.”

It was a wonderful sight: The young master sitting, radiating silence, his older devotee dictating extempore verses in a torrential flow and his disciples writing them down late into the night around the lantern light. Genius that he was, Kavyakantha started dictating the first line of the first verse to the first disciple, the first line of the second verse to the second disciple, the first line of the third verse to the third disciple and so on. Then, he proceeded without stopping to dictate the second line of the first verse to the first disciple, the second line of the second verse to the second disciple, the second line of the third verse to the third disciple…until at one thirty in the morning, the thousand verses were complete. Bhagavan, who until then was sitting with eyes closed in rock like silence, opened his eyes and asked, “Have you taken down all that I dictated?” Kavyakantha fell at his guru’s feet and cried “Yes Bhagavan, they are your verses!” This anthology of verses is called Uma Sahasram. Uma is the divine Mother, while ‘sahasram’ in Sanskrit means ‘thousand’. Therefore, the title can be translated as ‘thousand verses in praise of the divine Mother’. Kavyakantha revised the first seven hundred and odd verses many times but left the verses that he dictated that wonderful night, verses which he felt came from Bhagavan, untouched.