Part XIII — Nāmas 404–458 (Ślokas 88–95): Beyond Mind and Speech; the Consciousness and the Inert
ॐ श्रीमात्रे नमः · oṃ śrīmātre namaḥ
Beyond mind and speech
Part XIII opens with the sunburst of grace and a garland of Śiva-names — she is the light that breaks the darkness in the devotee's heart, Śiva's messenger and Śiva's very form, beloved of Śiva and wholly given to him. Then come the great apophatic names: she is immeasurable, self-luminous, beyond the reach of mind and speech — that which no thought can compass and no word can name. From this height the hymn states the deepest non-dual point of all: she is both the power of consciousness and the power of the inert, both the conscious and the unconscious — the one reality appearing as awareness and as the seemingly mindless matter it pervades. She is the sacred Gāyatrī and the daily worship; she is seated on the categories of existence and made of them, hidden within the five sheaths; she is boundless majesty, ever young, and brims with the rapture of bliss. The part closes in sweetness — the fragrant, lovely form, the kaula path, and the host of auspicious powers that are her own faces: contentment, nourishment, wisdom, steadiness, peace, well-being, and the remover of every obstacle.
॥ श्रीललितासहस्रनामस्तोत्रम् ॥
The Thousand Names — Ślokas 88–95 (Nāmas 404–458)
Śloka 88
भक्तहार्द-तमोभेद-भानुमद्भानु-सन्ततिः ।
शिवदूती शिवाराध्या शिवमूर्तिः शिवङ्करी ॥ ८८॥
bhakta-hārda-tamo-bheda-bhānumad-bhānu-santatiḥ |
śivadūtī śivārādhyā śiva-mūrtiḥ śivaṅkarī ǁ 88 ǁ
After the moonlight on Śiva's eyes, the hymn turns to the sun — she is the blaze of countless suns that splits the darkness lodged in the devotee's heart. Then a garland of Śiva-names: messenger of Śiva, worshipped by Śiva, of the very form of Śiva, the maker of good. The thread through all is the one Śiva-Śakti reality, named now from the side of the gracious Lord — and through it all, the work of grace is the breaking of the inner dark.
404. भक्तहार्दतमोभेदभानुमद्भानुसन्ततिः — Bhakta-hārda-tamo-bheda-bhānumad-bhānu-santatiḥ
Translation: A continuous blaze of suns (bhānu-santati) that splits the darkness (tamas) seated in the heart (hārda) of the devotee.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is a stream of suns, brilliant beyond a single sun, that breaks apart the darkness lodged in the devotee's heart. The apavāda: the “darkness in the heart” is the inner tamas — the ignorance that veils the Self; and she is not one sun but a continuous blaze of them, the overwhelming light of knowledge that does not merely lessen the dark but splits it utterly. Where she rises within, the long night of unknowing simply ends (recall Tamo'pahā — here the dispelling is a sunrise of suns).
Śrī Vidyā: Bhakta-hārda-tamo-bheda-bhānumad-bhānu-santatiḥ is the inner sun-blaze dispelling the heart's darkness; the light of jñāna rising in the devotee, brighter than a thousand suns.
405. शिवदूती — Śivadūtī
Translation: Śivadūtī — she who made Śiva her messenger (envoy); the Goddess of the Śivadūtī form.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A startling name: she “made Śiva her messenger” — in the lore, sending Śiva himself as envoy to the demons. The apavāda: that the supreme Lord serves as her messenger states, in the boldest terms, the primacy of the Śakti within the one reality — not that Śiva is lessened, but that power and its ground are so one that either may serve the other; the “sending of Śiva” is the One disposing its own faces. (And read as śiva-dūtī, she for whom Śiva is the envoy of grace.)
Śrī Vidyā: Śivadūtī is the Goddess who made Śiva her envoy (as in the Devī-māhātmya's Śivadūtī form); the supremacy of Śakti, with Śiva as her messenger.
406. शिवाराध्या — Śivārādhyā
Translation: Who is worshipped by Śiva (śiva-ārādhyā).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is worshipped by Śiva himself. The apavāda: as Bhairava and the great gods worship her, so does Śiva — the supreme Lord adoring his own Śakti, which is the one reality revering itself (recall Mahā-bhairava-pūjitā). The highest worships her because she is his own deepest self; the worship of Śiva is the Self's homage to the Self.
Śrī Vidyā: Śivārādhyā is worshipped by Śiva; the Goddess whom even the supreme Lord adores — the inseparable consort honoured by her own ground.
407. शिवमूर्तिः — Śiva-mūrtiḥ
Translation: Śiva-mūrtiḥ — whose very form is Śiva.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her form is Śiva. The apavāda: not merely Śiva's consort or power, she is Śiva — of one form with him (recall Śrīkaṇṭhārdha-śarīriṇī, the half-body); to say her form is Śiva is to deny the last separation, naming the single reality that is at once Śiva and Śakti. There are not two forms here, but one, called now by his name.
Śrī Vidyā: Śiva-mūrtiḥ is of the very form of Śiva; the non-difference of Śiva and Śakti, the one reality named as Śiva himself.
408. शिवङ्करी — Śivaṅkarī
Translation: Śivaṅkarī — the maker of good (śiva = auspicious; karī = doer).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “the maker of śiva” — of good, of auspiciousness (and, by the name, of Śiva-nature). The apavāda: the good she makes is finally the recognition of the Self, the supremely auspicious; she “makes things auspicious” by turning beings toward their own blessed ground (recall Śāṅkarī, Kalyāṇī). She makes good, and the highest good she makes is Śiva-hood itself — the blessedness that one already is.
Śrī Vidyā: Śivaṅkarī is the bestower of auspiciousness and welfare; she who makes the devotee's life and being śiva, blessed.
Śloka 89
शिवप्रिया शिवपरा शिष्टेष्टा शिष्टपूजिता ।
अप्रमेया स्वप्रकाशा मनोवाचामगोचरा ॥ ८९॥
śiva-priyā śiva-parā śiṣṭeṣṭā śiṣṭa-pūjitā |
aprameyā svaprakāśā mano-vācām-agocarā ǁ 89 ǁ
This śloka rises from devotion to the heights of apophatic teaching. She is beloved of Śiva and given wholly to him; cherished and worshipped by the wise. And then, in three words, the via negativa of the Upaniṣads: she is Aprameyā, immeasurable, beyond all means of knowledge that would make her an object; Svaprakāśā, self-luminous, known by her own light and by no other; and Mano-vācām-agocarā, beyond the range of mind and speech — that of which the Upaniṣad says, “whence words turn back, together with the mind, unable to reach.” She is not an object to be measured, lit by another, or caught in a word; she is the light by which all measuring, lighting, and speaking happen.
409. शिवप्रिया — Śiva-priyā
Translation: Beloved of Śiva, and to whom Śiva is dear.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is dear to Śiva, and he to her. The apavāda: the mutual belovedness (recall Mṛḍa-priyā, Ramaṇa-lampaṭā) is the self-love of the one reality — prakāśa cherishing its vimarśa, awareness delighting in its own self-awareness; their love is not between two but the intimacy of the One with itself.
Śrī Vidyā: Śiva-priyā is the beloved of Śiva; the inseparable mutual love of Śiva-Śakti, named from her side.
410. शिवपरा — Śiva-parā
Translation: Wholly devoted to Śiva; for whom Śiva is the highest.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “given wholly to Śiva” — Śiva is her all, her highest. The apavāda: her utter devotion to Śiva is the inclining of power toward its ground, the eternal turning of Śakti toward Śiva that is not a lack but the very intimacy of their oneness; to be śiva-parā is to be so wholly his that the two-ness is only nominal. (And śiva-parā: she beyond whom is only Śiva — who is not other than she.)
Śrī Vidyā: Śiva-parā is wholly intent on Śiva; the Śakti utterly devoted to her ground, the two one in their very devotion.
411. शिष्टेष्टा — Śiṣṭeṣṭā
Translation: Dear to (and desired by) the wise and virtuous (śiṣṭa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is dear to the śiṣṭa — the wise, the cultivated, the people of right discipline. The apavāda: the wise desire her above all, for they alone know what is truly worth desiring (Kāmyā); she is “the beloved of the wise” because wisdom's whole desire converges on the Self. To grow wise is to come to want only her.
Śrī Vidyā: Śiṣṭeṣṭā is cherished by the wise and disciplined; the Goddess desired by those of true understanding.
412. शिष्टपूजिता — Śiṣṭa-pūjitā
Translation: Worshipped by the wise and virtuous (śiṣṭa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is worshipped by the wise. The apavāda: those who know rightly worship her rightly — the worship of the śiṣṭa is the inward homage of understanding, the bowing of wisdom to the source of wisdom (recall Mahā-pūjyā, Vandyā). The reverence of the wise is knowledge recognising its own ground.
Śrī Vidyā: Śiṣṭa-pūjitā is worshipped by the wise and the cultured; honoured by those who follow the right discipline (śiṣṭācāra).
413. अप्रमेया — Aprameyā
Translation: Aprameyā — immeasurable, beyond all means of knowledge (pramāṇa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “immeasurable” — beyond all pramāṇa, the means of valid knowing. The apavāda: every means of knowledge (perception, inference, even scripture) takes its object as something other, measured, bounded; but she is not an object to be known by a knower — she is the knowing itself (Citi), the awareness in which all measuring occurs and which therefore can never be measured. The measurer cannot be measured; the eye cannot see itself as an object.
Śrī Vidyā: Aprameyā is immeasurable, beyond the pramāṇas; the reality that is never an object of knowledge but its very ground.
414. स्वप्रकाशा — Svaprakāśā
Translation: Svaprakāśā — self-luminous, shining by her own light.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “self-luminous” — shining by her own light, lit by no other. The apavāda: all else is known because consciousness illumines it; but consciousness is not illumined by a second consciousness (which would lead to endless regress) — it shines of itself, self-evident, self-revealing. She is svaprakāśa: that one light by which all is lit, itself needing no light to be known, for it is the very principle of being-known. (Recall Prabhā-rūpā — light's own form.)
Śrī Vidyā: Svaprakāśā is self-luminous consciousness; the svayam-prakāśa ātman, self-revealing, requiring no other light to be known.
415. मनोवाचामगोचरा — Mano-vācām-agocarā
Translation: Beyond the range (agocara) of mind (manas) and speech (vāc).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “beyond the reach of mind and speech.” The apavāda quotes the Upaniṣad directly: “whence words turn back, together with the mind, failing to reach it.” She cannot be thought, for thought makes its object finite; she cannot be spoken, for words name only the limited; she is that before which mind and speech fall silent — not because she is obscure, but because she is the very awareness within which mind and speech arise, and so can never be their object. Yet she is the four levels of speech (Parā… Vaikharī) and the indweller of the mind (Bhakta-mānasa-haṃsikā): beyond mind and speech, she is their source and their silence. The seeker reaches her not by thinking or saying, but by the falling-still of both.
Śrī Vidyā: Mano-vācām-agocarā is beyond mind and speech; the Taittirīya's “yato vāco nivartante, aprāpya manasā saha” — the reality from which words and mind turn back, unattained.
Śloka 90
चिच्छक्तिश्चेतनारूपा जडशक्तिर्जडात्मिका ।
गायत्री व्याहृतिः सन्ध्या द्विजबृन्द-निषेविता ॥ ९०॥
cic-chaktiś cetanā-rūpā jaḍa-śaktir jaḍātmikā |
gāyatrī vyāhṛtiḥ sandhyā dvija-bṛnda-niṣevitā ǁ 90 ǁ
At the heart of this śloka stands one of the most complete non-dual statements in the hymn. She is named, in a single breath, as both the power of consciousness and the power of the inert — both the conscious and the unconscious. For if she is the sole reality (Sarva-mayī), then not only awareness but even the seemingly mindless matter of the world must be hers, must be she; the conscious and the inert are not two stuffs but the one reality in two aspects, the single Śakti appearing both as the awareness that knows and as the inert that is known. There is no second principle of dead matter standing over against the living spirit: even the inert is her power. The verse then names her as the Gāyatrī, the holiest of mantras, and the daily worship — the sacred at the heart of the Veda.
416. चिच्छक्तिः — Cic-chaktiḥ
Translation: Cic-chakti — the power of consciousness.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the cit-śakti — the power of consciousness, the dynamic aspect of awareness. The apavāda: consciousness is not inert; it is luminous power, the very capacity by which anything is known or done; she is that power of awareness, cit in its active self-luminosity (recall Citi). She is the energy of knowing itself.
Śrī Vidyā: Cic-chaktiḥ is the power of consciousness, the active cit; the luminous energy of awareness, the spirit-pole of reality.
417. चेतनारूपा — Cetanā-rūpā
Translation: Whose form is consciousness/sentience (cetanā).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her form is cetanā — sentience, the conscious. The apavāda: deepening Cic-chakti, she is sentience itself, the awareness present in all that lives and knows; cetanā-rūpā names her as the conscious principle, the “knower” pole — the very awareness that the next pair will declare is not other than the inert it seems to oppose.
Śrī Vidyā: Cetanā-rūpā is of the form of sentience; the conscious principle (cetana), awareness as the living reality.
418. जडशक्तिः — Jaḍa-śaktiḥ
Translation: Jaḍa-śakti — the power of the inert (insentient matter).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: And now the bold counter: she is also the jaḍa-śakti — the power of the inert, the energy of insentient matter. The apavāda: if she alone is, then the inert too is hers — the seemingly dead, mindless matter of the world is not a second reality opposed to consciousness but the same one Śakti in its aspect of the known, the objectified. She is the power that appears as inert just as she is the power that knows; cit and jaḍa are her two faces, not two things. The non-dual teaching at its most radical: even matter is the Goddess.
Śrī Vidyā: Jaḍa-śaktiḥ is the power of the inert, insentient matter; the one Śakti appearing as the objective, material pole of reality — not a second principle, but her own aspect.
419. जडात्मिका — Jaḍātmikā
Translation: Whose self/nature appears as the inert (jaḍa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “of the nature of the inert” — appearing as the very substance of insentient things. The apavāda: completing the pair, she is not only the power behind matter but its very being — the inert world is she, in the mode of the unconscious; as the gold is the bracelet, she is the matter that seems mindless. The conscious (Cetanā-rūpā) and the inert (Jaḍātmikā) are thus declared one reality — the supreme non-dual point: there is nothing, living or dead, knowing or known, that is other than she. (The apparent dualism of spirit and matter is resolved: both are the one Śakti.)
Śrī Vidyā: Jaḍātmikā is of the nature of the inert; the Goddess as the very being of insentient matter — with Cetanā-rūpā, the resolution of spirit and matter into one Śakti.
420. गायत्री — Gāyatrī
Translation: Gāyatrī — the holiest Vedic mantra and its presiding Goddess.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the Gāyatrī — the most sacred of Vedic mantras, the verse to the light of the sun-source, and its presiding deity. The apavāda: the Gāyatrī is the prayer that the supreme light may illumine the intellect; she is that light and that prayer at once — the radiance the mantra invokes and the very deity it addresses. As the holiest of mantras she is, again, the one Word (Nāda-rūpā, Sarva-mantra-svarūpiṇī) in its most revered form. (Said also to “protect (trā) the one who sings (gāya)” it.)
Śrī Vidyā: Gāyatrī is the supreme Vedic mantra and its Goddess; the veda-mātā, mother of the Vedas, the light-invoking verse personified.
421. व्याहृतिः — Vyāhṛtiḥ
Translation: Vyāhṛti — the sacred utterances (bhūr, bhuvaḥ, svaḥ) prefixed to the Gāyatrī.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the vyāhṛtis — the great utterances (bhūḥ, bhuvaḥ, svaḥ) that name the three worlds and crown the Gāyatrī. The apavāda: the vyāhṛtis are the seed-words of the three worlds, the sacred syllables from which the realms are invoked; she is these utterances as the Word that is the three worlds (recall the worlds blinking in her glance) — speech and cosmos, once more, one in her.
Śrī Vidyā: Vyāhṛtiḥ is the sacred vyāhṛtis (bhūḥ bhuvaḥ svaḥ); the utterances of the three worlds that accompany the Gāyatrī and the praṇava.
422. सन्ध्या — Sandhyā
Translation: Sandhyā — the daily junction-worship (and its presiding Goddess).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the Sandhyā — the worship performed at the junctions of the day (dawn, noon, dusk), and the goddess of those joints of time. The apavāda: the sandhyā is the threshold-moment, the meeting of day and night, of times — and she is that juncture and its worship; the in-between in which the eternal is honoured, the seam of time at which the timeless is touched. She is the sacred pause and the one adored in it.
Śrī Vidyā: Sandhyā is the daily junction-worship and its presiding Goddess; the sacred twilight rite, and the deity of the meeting-points of time.
423. द्विजबृन्दनिषेविता — Dvija-bṛnda-niṣevitā
Translation: Worshipped by the host of the twice-born (dvija-bṛnda).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is served by the host of the dvijas — the twice-born, those who have taken up the sacred discipline. The apavāda: the “twice-born” are, at the deeper level, the regenerate — those reborn into the life of the spirit; and read so, she is worshipped by all who have undergone the inner second birth, the awakening to the quest for the Self. The truly twice-born is the one born again into self-knowledge, and such a one's whole life is her worship.
Śrī Vidyā: Dvija-bṛnda-niṣevitā is worshipped by the community of the twice-born; honoured in the daily devotions of those consecrated to the Veda.
Śloka 91
तत्त्वासना तत्त्वमयी पञ्च-कोशान्तर-स्थिता ।
निःसीम-महिमा नित्य-यौवना मदशालिनी ॥ ९१॥
tattvāsanā tattva-mayī pañca-kośāntara-sthitā |
niḥsīma-mahimā nitya-yauvanā mada-śālinī ǁ 91 ǁ
424. तत्त्वासना — Tattvāsanā
Translation: Whose seat (āsana) is the tattvas — the categories of existence.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her seat is the tattvas — the principles of existence (the thirty-six of the Śaiva scheme, or the twenty-five of Sāṃkhya). The apavāda: as she sat on the five gods (Pañca-pretāsanā) and the great seat (Mahāsanā), here she sits upon the very categories of reality — the whole structured order of existence is the throne beneath the changeless witness; the tattvas support her as the manifest supports the awareness that knows it. Her seat is the entire fabric of existence, on which she rests unmoved.
Śrī Vidyā: Tattvāsanā is enthroned upon the tattvas, the principles of manifestation; the Goddess seated on the categories of existence (the thirty-six tattvas of Śaiva cosmology).
425. तत् — Tat
Translation: Tat — “That”: the supreme reality pointed to by the word tat in the great saying.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: In the standard recension the single word tattva-mayī is told as three names — Tat, Tvam, Ayi — spelling out “tat tvam ayi,” “Thou art That, O Mother.” The first is Tat, “That.” The apavāda: tat is the very word of the mahāvākya “tat tvam asi,” pointing to the supreme reality (recall Tat-pada-lakṣyārthā in Part XII); she is that “That” — the transcendent ground the Upaniṣad declares. The hymn here writes the great identity directly into her names. (Tat / Tvam / Ayi together = tattva-mayī.)
Śrī Vidyā: Tat is the “That” of the mahāvākya; the first of the three names (Tat-Tvam-Ayi) into which tattva-mayī is told, the supreme reality of “tat tvam asi.”
426. त्वम् — Tvam
Translation: Tvam — “Thou”: the innermost self that the saying identifies with That.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The second of the three: Tvam, “Thou.” The apavāda: tvam is the “thou” of “tat tvam asi” — the innermost awareness of the seeker (recall Pratyak-citī-rūpā, the inward consciousness, in Part XII); she is that very “thou,” the indwelling Self that the great saying declares to be none other than “That.” In naming her both Tat and Tvam, the hymn says: the supreme and the inmost self are one — and that one is she. (Tat / Tvam / Ayi together = tattva-mayī.)
Śrī Vidyā: Tvam is the “Thou” of the mahāvākya; the innermost self (the tvam-pada), declared one with “That” — the second of the three names forming tattva-mayī.
427. अयि — Ayi
Translation: Ayi — “O Mother!”: the tender vocative that completes “Thou art That, O Mother.”
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The third: Ayi, the loving vocative, “O (Mother)!” The apavāda: where tat and tvam state the identity, ayi turns it into address — “Thou art That, O Mother.” The bare metaphysical equation becomes a cry of love; the recognition that the supreme is one's own Self is uttered not as a proposition but as an intimate calling-out to her. Knowledge culminates in devotion: the mahāvākya spoken as a child's word to the Mother. (Tat / Tvam / Ayi together = tattva-mayī — the truth “That thou art” made an address of love.)
Śrī Vidyā: Ayi is the tender vocative “O Mother” completing “tat tvam ayi”; the third of the three names forming tattva-mayī, in which the non-dual identity becomes an utterance of love. (These three together are also nāma 907, Tattva-mayī.)
428. पञ्चकोशान्तरस्थिता — Pañca-kośāntara-sthitā
Translation: Who dwells within (antara) the five sheaths (pañca-kośa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She abides within the five kośas — the five sheaths (of food, breath, mind, intellect, and bliss) that the Taittirīya describes as enveloping the Self. The apavāda: the five sheaths are the layers that seem to cover the Self, like husks about the grain; she dwells “within” them as the innermost — the Self at the core, which the discrimination of the sheaths (peeling them away one by one) finally uncovers. She is what remains when every sheath is seen to be not-the-Self: the awareness within and beyond all five. (The bliss-sheath, ānanda-maya, is the last and subtlest veil — and she is even within that.)
Śrī Vidyā: Pañca-kośāntara-sthitā dwells within the five sheaths (annamaya to ānandamaya); the innermost Self the Taittirīya uncovers by the analysis of the kośas.
429. निःसीममहिमा — Niḥsīma-mahimā
Translation: Of boundless (niḥsīma) greatness/glory (mahimā).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her greatness is “without limit” — boundless. The apavāda: mahimā is glory, majesty, and hers has no sīmā, no border; she is the infinite, to which no edge can be set (recall Anādi-nidhanā, Vyāpinī) — for a limit would require a second thing beyond her, and there is none. Her greatness is boundless because she is the boundless itself.
Śrī Vidyā: Niḥsīma-mahimā is of limitless greatness; the infinite glory of the Goddess, beyond all measure or bound.
430. नित्ययौवना — Nitya-yauvanā
Translation: Nitya-yauvanā — ever-young, in eternal youth.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “ever-young” — in perpetual, unfading youth (echoing Taruṇī). The apavāda: her youth is timelessness wearing the freshness of the eternally new; the deathless does not age, for aging belongs to what is in time, and she is the timeless (Nityā) in which time itself appears. Ever at her first bloom, because never in the stream of becoming.
Śrī Vidyā: Nitya-yauvanā is the ever-youthful Goddess, perpetually fresh; the agelessness of the deathless, eternally sixteen.
431. मदशालिनी — Mada-śālinī
Translation: Mada-śālinī — graced with the rapture (mada) of bliss.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “adorned with mada” — radiant with rapture. The apavāda: as with Vāruṇī-mada-vihvalā, the mada here is not the intoxication of pride (which she is ever free of — Nirmadā) but the swoon of bliss, the rapture of the Self's own fullness; she is mada-śālinī, graced and glowing with the ānanda that overflows in her. The opening of a small cluster of names celebrating this rapture of bliss.
Śrī Vidyā: Mada-śālinī is graced with the rapture of bliss; the Goddess radiant with the ānanda-intoxication of her own fullness — the swoon of joy, not the mada of pride.
Śloka 92
मदघूर्णित-रक्ताक्षी मदपाटल-गण्डभूः ।
चन्दन-द्रव-दिग्धाङ्गी चाम्पेय-कुसुम-प्रिया ॥ ९२॥
mada-ghūrṇita-raktākṣī mada-pāṭala-gaṇḍa-bhūḥ |
candana-drava-digdhāṅgī cāmpeya-kusuma-priyā ǁ 92 ǁ
432. मदघूर्णितरक्ताक्षी — Mada-ghūrṇita-raktākṣī
Translation: Whose reddish eyes roll/swim gently with the rapture of bliss (mada).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her reddish eyes swim and roll softly, as if gently overcome with rapture. The apavāda: the image is of the eyes half-closed, languid, swimming — the look of one absorbed in bliss; her reddish eyes (recall the dawn-red, the ruby glow) are ghūrṇita, gently rolling with the mada of ānanda — the gaze of awareness drunk on its own fullness, turned inward in rapture. The bliss is so great it shows even in the swimming of the eyes.
Śrī Vidyā: Mada-ghūrṇita-raktākṣī has reddish eyes swimming with the rapture of bliss; the languid, inward-turned gaze of the Goddess absorbed in ānanda.
433. मदपाटलगण्डभूः — Mada-pāṭala-gaṇḍa-bhūḥ
Translation: Whose cheeks (gaṇḍa) are flushed rosy-pink (pāṭala) with the glow of rapture (mada).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her cheeks are flushed a rosy pink with the warmth of rapture. The apavāda: the flush of the cheek is the outward bloom of the inner bliss — the rose-glow (recall Aruṇā) suffusing the form from within; her cheeks are pāṭala, pink, with the mada of joy, the radiance of ānanda warming even the surface of the form. Beauty here is bliss made visible on the face.
Śrī Vidyā: Mada-pāṭala-gaṇḍa-bhūḥ has cheeks rosy with the warmth of rapture; the bloom of ānanda visible in the flush of her face.
434. चन्दनद्रवदिग्धाङ्गी — Candana-drava-digdhāṅgī
Translation: Whose limbs are anointed with liquid sandal-paste (candana-drava).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her limbs are smeared with cool, fragrant liquid sandal-paste. The apavāda is light and free — the loveliness of the anointed form, cool and sweet-scented; yet sandal is the cooling unguent, and its coolness on her limbs answers the warmth of the rapture-flush, the play of heat and cool that is the body of bliss. A delight of the senses, enjoyed in freedom, pointing past itself to the coolness of peace.
Śrī Vidyā: Candana-drava-digdhāṅgī has limbs anointed with sandal-paste; the cool, fragrant beauty of the dhyāna-form of the Goddess.
435. चाम्पेयकुसुमप्रिया — Cāmpeya-kusuma-priyā
Translation: Fond of the campaka (campā) flower.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She loves the golden, fragrant campaka blossom. The apavāda, as with the kadamba flower before (Kadamba-kusuma-priyā): the dear particular delight is enjoyed as her own — the love of a flower's beauty and scent is awareness delighting in the loveliness of its own manifestation, the Self pleased with its own blossoming and fragrance.
Śrī Vidyā: Cāmpeya-kusuma-priyā loves the campaka flower; a fragrant delight of the Goddess, an offering dear to her.
Śloka 93
कुशला कोमलाकारा कुरुकुल्ला कुलेश्वरी ।
कुलकुण्डालया कौलमार्ग-तत्पर-सेविता ॥ ९३॥
kuśalā komalākārā kurukullā kuleśvarī |
kula-kuṇḍālayā kaula-mārga-tatpara-sevitā ǁ 93 ǁ
This śloka returns to the vocabulary of kula — the secret terminology met earlier in the kaula and akula names. She is Kurukullā, a fierce attendant Goddess of the tradition; the lady of the kula; she who dwells in the kula-kuṇḍa; and the one worshipped by those devoted to the kaula path. As before, this commentary reads the kula-terms as figures of the one non-dual reality — kula as the embodied flow of energy, the totality, the channels and the centres — and takes no sectarian side on the practices of the kaula and samaya schools, deferring on their inner detail to the practitioner.
436. कुशला — Kuśalā
Translation: Kuśalā — the skilful, the auspicious; well-being itself.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “the skilful,” the auspicious, well-being (kuśala). The apavāda: kuśala is skill, welfare, the wholesome state; she is skilfulness itself — the consummate ease of the One in its play (recall Vilāsinī), and the well-being that is the Self's own nature. She is adept in all, because all is her own doing.
Śrī Vidyā: Kuśalā is the skilful and auspicious Goddess; well-being and consummate skill, the ease of the divine play.
437. कोमलाकारा — Komalākārā
Translation: Of a soft, tender form (komala-ākāra).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her form is soft, tender, delicate. The apavāda: tenderness of form mirrors the tenderness of grace (recall Nitya-klinnā, the ever-moist); her komala form is the gentleness of the Mother made visible, the soft approachability of the supreme to the loving heart. Even her form is mercy, soft to the touch of devotion.
Śrī Vidyā: Komalākārā is of tender, gentle form; the soft, approachable beauty of the maternal Goddess.
438. कुरुकुल्ला — Kurukullā
Translation: Kurukullā — a fierce attendant Goddess of the Śrī Vidyā, dwelling in the kula.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Kurukullā — a powerful attendant Goddess of the tradition, associated with the kula and the flesh-and-blood of the body's offering. The apavāda need not enter the fierce particulars: Kurukullā is one of her own powers, named among the host (recall the yoginīs, the Nityās); to be Kurukullā is to be the deity in this commanding, attracting form — a face of the one Śakti. (The detail of her kaula worship belongs to the initiate.)
Śrī Vidyā: Kurukullā is a fierce attendant Goddess of the Śrī Vidyā, dwelling in the kula; one of the Goddess's own powers — her inner worship held within the parampara.
439. कुलेश्वरी — Kuleśvarī
Translation: Kuleśvarī — the lady/sovereign of the kula.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “lady of the kula” — sovereign of the totality of energies. The apavāda: as Kulāntaḥsthā, Kaulinī before, kula is the embodied web of energy, the channels and centres; she is its īśvarī, the ruling awareness within the whole energy-body — the one consciousness that governs the entire system of powers by being their source. (And, as Akulā, beyond the kula she rules.)
Śrī Vidyā: Kuleśvarī is the sovereign of the kula; the presiding Goddess of the kaula system of energies, lady of the channels and centres.
440. कुलकुण्डालया — Kula-kuṇḍālayā
Translation: Who dwells in the kula-kuṇḍa (the hollow at the base, seat of the kuṇḍalinī).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She dwells in the kula-kuṇḍa — the “hollow of the kula,” the cavity at the base of the spine that is the seat of the coiled power. The apavāda: this is the Mūlādhāra revisited (recall Mūlādhāraika-nilayā, Kuṇḍalinī) — the base-centre where the Śakti lies coiled, the “home of the kula” from which the ascent begins; she dwells there as the dormant power awaiting its rising. The cave at the root is her abode, and from it she rises to the crown.
Śrī Vidyā: Kula-kuṇḍālayā dwells in the kula-kuṇḍa, the hollow at the Mūlādhāra; the seat of the coiled kuṇḍalinī, her abode at the base.
441. कौलमार्गतत्परसेविता — Kaula-mārga-tatpara-sevitā
Translation: Worshipped by those wholly devoted to the kaula path (kaula-mārga).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is served by those intent on the kaula-mārga — the kaula path of worship. The apavāda: the kaula path is one disciplined approach to her among others (recall the balanced treatment of kula and samaya); she is “worshipped by its devotees” as the goal of that path, as of every genuine path. This commentary names the path without adjudicating its practices, reading the kaula-mārga as one road to the one reality, and deferring to the practitioner on its inner observances.
Śrī Vidyā: Kaula-mārga-tatpara-sevitā is worshipped by the followers of the kaula path; the Goddess as the goal of the kaula sādhanā — its inner detail belonging to the initiated, with no sectarian claim urged here.
Śloka 94
कुमारगणनाथाम्बा तुष्टिः पुष्टिर्मतिर्धृतिः ।
शान्तिः स्वस्तिमती कान्तिर्नन्दिनी विघ्ननाशिनी ॥ ९४॥
kumāra-gaṇanāthāmbā tuṣṭiḥ puṣṭir matir dhṛtiḥ |
śāntiḥ svastimatī kāntir nandinī vighna-nāśinī ǁ 94 ǁ
This śloka first names her as the Mother of Kumāra (Skanda) and Gaṇanātha (Gaṇeśa) — the universal Mother in her most familiar, beloved aspect, parent of the two great gods who are her sons. Then comes a garland of qualities personified as goddesses: contentment, nourishment, intelligence, steadiness, peace, well-being, loveliness, joy. These are not separate deities but her own faces — the auspicious powers (often counted among the attendant Śaktis) through which she blesses the world; every wholesome quality of life is named here as the Goddess herself. The verse closes with the remover of all obstacles.
442. कुमारगणनाथाम्बा — Kumāra-gaṇanāthāmbā
Translation: The Mother (ambā) of Kumāra (Skanda) and Gaṇanātha (Gaṇeśa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the Mother of Kumāra (Skanda) and of Gaṇeśa — the universal Mother in her dearest, most human aspect. The apavāda: after the loftiest apophatic heights (beyond mind and speech), the hymn returns to the tender — she is simply “Mother,” parent of the beloved gods (recall the Gaṇeśa born of her glance, Part IV); the supreme reality met as the Mother of the household of gods. The infinite is also, intimately, “mother.”
Śrī Vidyā: Kumāra-gaṇanāthāmbā is the Mother of Skanda and Gaṇeśa; the universal Mother (ambā) in her maternal aspect, parent of the two great sons.
443. तुष्टिः — Tuṣṭiḥ
Translation: Tuṣṭi — contentment, satisfaction.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Tuṣṭi — contentment itself. The apavāda: the wholesome qualities now named are her own faces; contentment is the ease of the Full (Pūrṇā), which, lacking nothing, rests satisfied — she is that contentment, the settled peace of one who wants for nothing. (The first of a garland of auspicious powers, each a face of the Goddess.)
Śrī Vidyā: Tuṣṭiḥ is contentment personified; one of the auspicious quality-Śaktis, a face of the Goddess as satisfaction.
444. पुष्टिः — Puṣṭiḥ
Translation: Puṣṭi — nourishment, thriving, abundance.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Puṣṭi — nourishment, the power that makes things thrive. The apavāda: nourishment is the sustaining grace (recall Goptrī, the preserver); she is that which feeds and increases all, the abundance by which beings flourish — the maternal sustenance that is the Mother's own nature. (A face of the Goddess as thriving plenty.)
Śrī Vidyā: Puṣṭiḥ is nourishment and thriving abundance; a quality-Śakti, the Goddess as the power that sustains and increases.
445. मतिः — Matiḥ
Translation: Mati — intelligence, understanding, the discerning mind.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Mati — intelligence, the discerning understanding. The apavāda: mati is the mind's power of right thought; she is that understanding (recall Mahā-buddhi) — the light of awareness lending the intellect its power to discern, the very faculty of wisdom personified as the Goddess. (A face of the Goddess as discernment.)
Śrī Vidyā: Matiḥ is intelligence and understanding; a quality-Śakti, the Goddess as the power of right discernment.
446. धृतिः — Dhṛtiḥ
Translation: Dhṛti — steadiness, fortitude, the power that upholds.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Dhṛti — steadiness, the firm holding-together, fortitude. The apavāda: dhṛti is the power that sustains and steadies, the inner constancy that does not waver; she is that firmness — the unshakable steadiness of the Self (Nirvikārā, the changeless) given as fortitude to the one who leans on her. (A face of the Goddess as steadfastness.)
Śrī Vidyā: Dhṛtiḥ is steadiness and fortitude; a quality-Śakti, the Goddess as the power of firm endurance.
447. शान्तिः — Śāntiḥ
Translation: Śānti — peace, tranquillity.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Śānti — peace itself (recall Śāntā, the still word among the negations). The apavāda: peace is not the absence of events but the stillness of the ground beneath them; she is that peace, the tranquillity that is the Self's own nature, given to the heart that turns to her. The deepest of the auspicious qualities, for it is the very face of the Self at rest. (A face of the Goddess as tranquillity.)
Śrī Vidyā: Śāntiḥ is peace personified; a quality-Śakti, the Goddess as the tranquillity that is the Self's own nature.
448. स्वस्तिमती — Svastimatī
Translation: Svastimatī — full of well-being and blessing (svasti).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “full of svasti” — replete with well-being, blessing, the auspicious “may it be well.” The apavāda: svasti is the benediction of welfare, and she is full of it — the source of the blessing invoked at every threshold (recall Sarva-maṅgalā, Kalyāṇī); to be svastimatī is to be the very well-being that grace bestows. (A face of the Goddess as benediction.)
Śrī Vidyā: Svastimatī is full of well-being and blessing; a quality-Śakti, the Goddess as the power of auspicious welfare (svasti).
449. कान्तिः — Kāntiḥ
Translation: Kānti — loveliness, radiance, lustre.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Kānti — loveliness, the radiant glow of beauty (recall Kāntā). The apavāda: kānti is the lustre of the beautiful, and she is that radiance — the shining loveliness that is the visible glow of consciousness (Prabhā-rūpā); beauty as the very luster of the Self. (A face of the Goddess as radiant loveliness.)
Śrī Vidyā: Kāntiḥ is loveliness and radiance; a quality-Śakti, the Goddess as the lustre of beauty.
450. नन्दिनी — Nandinī
Translation: Nandinī — she who delights, the joyous one.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Nandinī — the joyous, she who delights and gives joy. The apavāda: nanda is joy, and she is the delighting one (recall Rañjanī, Nandinī of bliss) — the gladness that is the overflow of the Self's own ānanda, the joy that gladdens all who come near. (A face of the Goddess as delight.)
Śrī Vidyā: Nandinī is the joyous, delighting Goddess; a quality-Śakti, the Goddess as the power of gladness.
451. विघ्ननाशिनी — Vighna-nāśinī
Translation: Vighna-nāśinī — the destroyer of obstacles (vighna).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She destroys all obstacles. The apavāda: the vighna, the impediment, is finally the inner obstruction — the doubt, the resistance, the “it cannot be done” (recall the shattering of the vighna-yantra in the war, and Gaṇeśa born to clear the way); she “destroys obstacles” by the clarity of her presence, in which the manufactured impediments of the mind dissolve. The garland of qualities closes, fittingly, with the clearing of every obstacle to the good. (A face of the Goddess as the remover of hindrance — the mother of Gaṇeśa, herself the obstacle-remover.)
Śrī Vidyā: Vighna-nāśinī is the destroyer of obstacles; a quality-Śakti, the Goddess as the power that removes every impediment — recalling Gaṇeśa, her son, the obstacle-remover.
Śloka 95
तेजोवती त्रिनयना लोलाक्षी-कामरूपिणी ।
मालिनी हंसिनी माता मलयाचल-वासिनी ॥ ९५॥
tejovatī trinayanā lolākṣī-kāmarūpiṇī |
mālinī haṃsinī mātā malayācala-vāsinī ǁ 95 ǁ
452. तेजोवती — Tejovatī
Translation: Tejovatī — full of radiant energy and splendour (tejas).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “possessed of tejas” — radiant fiery energy, splendour. The apavāda: tejas is the blazing power of light and energy (recall the fire-orb, Vahni-maṇḍala-vāsinī); she is full of it — the brilliance of consciousness, the energy that both illumines and burns away the dark. Her splendour is the heat and light of pure awareness.
Śrī Vidyā: Tejovatī is full of radiant energy; the splendour (tejas) of the Goddess, the fiery brilliance of consciousness.
453. त्रिनयना — Trinayanā
Translation: Trinayanā — the three-eyed (whose three eyes are sun, moon, and fire).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is three-eyed, as Śiva is — her three eyes being, traditionally, the sun, the moon, and fire. The apavāda: the three eyes are the three lights (recall the three orbs — lunar, solar, fiery — in which she was seated); to be three-eyed is to be the seer through all three luminaries, the one vision that is sun and moon and fire at once, surveying past, present, and future, the outer and the inner. Her three eyes are the three lights of the cosmos, and the single seeing behind them. (Sharing Śiva's three eyes — again, one form with him.)
Śrī Vidyā: Trinayanā is three-eyed, her eyes the sun, moon, and fire; sharing Śiva's three eyes, the Goddess as the seer through the three luminaries.
454. लोलाक्षीकामरूपिणी — Lolākṣī-kāmarūpiṇī
Translation: Whose restless, playful eyes embody love (and who can take any form at will — kāma-rūpiṇī).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her eyes move playfully, restlessly, full of love; and she takes whatever form she wills (kāma-rūpiṇī). The apavāda: the lola, restless eye is the glance of love and play (recall the merciful, world-creating glance); and kāma-rūpiṇī, “of form-at-will,” names her freedom to assume any form — for she who is formless (Nirākārā) and all-formed (Vividhākārā) wears forms freely, as the play of love. Her playful eyes and her freedom of form are one freedom: love at play, taking shape as it wishes.
Śrī Vidyā: Lolākṣī-kāmarūpiṇī has playful, love-filled eyes and assumes forms at will; the Goddess free in form (kāma-rūpa), the play of love taking shape as it pleases.
455. मालिनी — Mālinī
Translation: Mālinī — the garlanded; she who wears the garland of the fifty letters (mātṛkā).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “the garlanded” — wearing a garland, and esoterically the garland of the fifty (or fifty-one) letters of the alphabet, the mātṛkā. The apavāda: the garland of letters is the whole of speech worn as an ornament — she who is the four levels of speech (Parā… Vaikharī) and the source of the alphabet (Nāda-rūpā) wears the letters as a garland about her; all language is her adornment, the varṇa-mālā she bears. The letters that compose every word and mantra are her necklace.
Śrī Vidyā: Mālinī is the garlanded Goddess, wearing the mālā of the fifty letters (the mātṛkā-varṇas); the alphabet-garland, source of all mantra — a name central to the Mālinī-tradition of the tantras.
456. हंसिनी — Haṃsinī
Translation: Haṃsinī — she of the haṃsa (the swan; the so'haṃ / haṃsa breath-mantra).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is “of the haṃsa” — the swan, and the haṃsa-mantra that breathes in every breath. The apavāda: the haṃsa (recall Bhakta-mānasa-haṃsikā) is the swan of discernment and the natural mantra haṃsa / so'ham (“I am That”) that sounds, unspoken, in every inhalation and exhalation; she is haṃsinī as that ceaseless breath-prayer — the “I am That” that the breath itself repeats, the ajapā-japa, the unrecited recitation sounding in all who breathe. With every breath, she affirms the identity the whole hymn teaches.
Śrī Vidyā: Haṃsinī is she of the haṃsa; the haṃsa/so'haṃ breath-mantra (the ajapā-gāyatrī) sounding in every breath, and the swan of the discerning spirit.
457. माता — Mātā
Translation: Mātā — the Mother.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is, simply, Mātā — “Mother.” The apavāda: the tenderest and most complete of names, sounded again (recall Ambikā); she is the Mother of all (Ābrahma-kīṭa-jananī), and to call her so is to know oneself her child, of her own substance, never apart. After the cosmic and esoteric heights, the one word that says everything: Mother. (She is also the source — mātṛ — of all, and the mātṛkā she wears.)
Śrī Vidyā: Mātā is the Mother; the universal Mother of all beings, the most intimate name of the Goddess.
458. मलयाचलवासिनी — Malayācala-vāsinī
Translation: Who dwells on the Malaya mountain (the sandal-wood range).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She dwells on the Malaya mountain — the southern range famed for its sandalwood and cool, fragrant breezes. The apavāda, as with her other mountain-abodes (Vindhyācala, the Meru-peak): the sacred mountain is a focus for devotion, and its cool, sandal-scented air is an image of the refreshing peace of her presence; she “dwells on Malaya” as the cool, fragrant grace met at a holy height (recall the sandal-anointed limbs). The omnipresent, localised for love on the sweet-aired mountain.
Śrī Vidyā: Malayācala-vāsinī dwells on the Malaya mountain (the sandalwood range); a sacred southern abode of the Goddess, fragrant and cool.
Devanagari per the sanskritdocuments.org recension (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, Uttarakhaṇḍa; Hayagrīva–Agastya saṃvāda). Transliteration, translation, and commentary original to this edition. — End of Part XIII.
