Part II — Nāmas 27–54 (Ślokas 11–21): The Form Completed
ॐ श्रीमात्रे नमः · oṃ śrīmātre namaḥ
Continuing the descent
Part II resumes the hymn at the eleventh śloka, taking up the keśādi-pādānta-varṇana — the description of the Goddess from crown to feet — where Part I left it, at the threshold of speech and the throat. The fourfold treatment continues unchanged: verse, transliteration, translation, and the twin commentary through adhyāropa-apavāda and the Śrī Vidyā paramparā. As the portrait descends the body it also descends the central axis, crossing from the vāgbhava peak (the face) into the madhya peak (throat to hip) and then the śakti peak (hip to feet); the limbs are at once a figure of beauty, a map of the mantra, and a diagram of the rising and descending current. The description completes at the twenty-first śloka, where the constructed form resolves into the single icon of Śiva and Śakti — poised at the very edge of the great negations to come.
॥ श्रीललितासहस्रनामस्तोत्रम् ॥
The Thousand Names — Ślokas 11–21 (Nāmas 27–54)
Śloka 11
निज-सल्लाप-माधुर्य-विनिर्भर्त्सित-कच्छपी । (निज-संलाप)
मन्दस्मित-प्रभापूर-मज्जत्कामेश-मानसा ॥ ११॥
nija-sallāpa-mādhurya-vinirbhartsita-kacchapī |
manda-smita-prabhāpūra-majjat-kāmeśa-mānasā ǁ 11 ǁ
27. निजसल्लापमाधुर्यविनिर्भर्त्सितकच्छपी — Nija-sallāpa-mādhurya-vinirbhartsita-kacchapī
Translation: The sweetness of whose speech puts to shame the kacchapī lute (of Sarasvatī).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Speech is superimposed — and not bare speech, but a sweetness that shames the very lute of the goddess of music. Yet what is praised is sound, articulate Vāk. The apavāda points behind melodious speech (vaikharī) to its silent source (parā vāk), the unstruck word from which all music and meaning rise and into which they set. The lute is “put to shame” because every instrument's sweetness is borrowed from the Consciousness that the speaker already is.
Śrī Vidyā: Her speech is the Mātṛkā made audible; that the kacchapī (Sarasvatī's vīṇā) is outdone signals that the Vāk-devatās — Vaśinī and her sisters, the seers of this very hymn — speak through Her. The four levels of speech, parā, paśyantī, madhyamā, vaikharī, are Her unfolding from the bindu to the spoken sound.
28. मन्दस्मितप्रभापूरमज्जत्कामेशमानसा — Manda-smita-prabhāpūra-majjat-kāmeśa-mānasā
Translation: In the flood of radiance of whose gentle smile the mind of Kāmeśa (Śiva) lies submerged.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Where an earlier name drowned the whole cosmic egg in Her crimson light, here the scale narrows to the most intimate object of all — the mind of Śiva Himself — sunk in the radiance of Her faint smile. The apavāda: if even Śiva's mind is submerged in Her, no cognizer remains outside Her to know Her as another; subject and object close into a single light. The smile is the spontaneous self-delight (ānanda) of awareness, in which the last witness disappears.
Śrī Vidyā: The absorption of the Śiva-mind into the Śakti-smile is sāmarasya, the equipoise at the bindu that the whole tradition seeks. Kāmeśa drowned in Her is Prakāśa recognising itself as nothing other than its own vimarśa.
Śloka 12
अनाकलित-सादृश्य-चिबुकश्री-विराजिता । (चुबुकश्री)
कामेश-बद्ध-माङ्गल्य-सूत्र-शोभित-कन्धरा ॥ १२॥
anākalita-sādṛśya-cibuka-śrī-virājitā |
kāmeśa-baddha-māṅgalya-sūtra-śobhita-kandharā ǁ 12 ǁ
With the throat (kandharā) the description crosses from the vāgbhava-kūṭa — the realm of the face and of speech — into the madhya-kūṭa, the central peak of the mantra that governs the body from throat to hip. The seal of union is fittingly set at the very seat of the Word.
29. अनाकलितसादृश्यचिबुकश्रीविराजिता — Anākalita-sādṛśya-cibuka-śrī-virājitā
Translation: Radiant with the loveliness of a chin beyond all comparison.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Beauty is superimposed, then declared incomparable — anākalita-sādṛśya, “a likeness for which cannot be conceived.” The apavāda is folded into the word: comparison (upamāna) is the very engine of the conditioned mind, which knows only through likeness and difference. That for which no likeness can be formed cannot be grasped by comparison at all — it can only be the case. The incomparable chin points to the incomparable (asama) Self, which no analogy reaches.
Śrī Vidyā: The without-a-second (advitīya) is here sounded in the idiom of beauty; the chin completes the maṇḍala of the face just above the throat, the doorway to the madhya-kūṭa.
30. कामेशबद्धमाङ्गल्यसूत्रशोभितकन्धरा — Kāmeśa-baddha-māṅgalya-sūtra-śobhita-kandharā
Translation: Whose neck is graced by the auspicious marriage-thread bound there by Kāmeśa.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The bond of marriage is superimposed — She is “tied” to Śiva by the maṅgalya-sūtra. The apavāda: this thread between Śiva and Śakti is not a tie between two, but the sign that prakāśa (light) and vimarśa (self-awareness) are inseparable — never two to be joined, the “thread” marking only a non-difference that was never breached. That the seal is set at the neck, the seat of speech, says that the union is sealed at the place of the Word.
Śrī Vidyā: As the eternally auspicious wife (nitya-sumaṅgalī), Her bond is the inseparability that the kāmarāja bīja encodes; the knot at the throat opens the madhya-kūṭa, the kāmarāja region of the body.
Śloka 13
कनकाङ्गद-केयूर-कमनीय-भुजान्विता ।
रत्नग्रैवेय-चिन्ताक-लोल-मुक्ता-फलान्विता ॥ १३॥
kanakāṅgada-keyūra-kamanīya-bhujānvitā |
ratna-graiveya-cintāka-lola-muktā-phalānvitā ǁ 13 ǁ
31. कनकाङ्गदकेयूरकमनीयभुजान्विता — Kanakāṅgada-keyūra-kamanīya-bhujānvitā
Translation: Endowed with lovely arms graced by golden armlets (aṅgada) and bracelets (keyūra).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The arms, already named as four, are now gilded — agency dressed in gold. The apavāda recalls what those arms hold: the noose, goad, bow, and arrows, the instruments of binding and cognition. Beautified, they are the adorned powers of action (kriyā-śakti); one may delight in the ornament, provided one remembers that the arm is wielded by the One who is not the arm.
Śrī Vidyā: The golden ornaments are the kriyā-śakti made splendid; in the Śrī Cakra the radiating powers are adorned about the centre. Gold (hema) is the hue of the grace-bearing form of the third dhyāna.
32. रत्नग्रैवेयचिन्ताकलोलमुक्ताफलान्विता — Ratna-graiveya-cintāka-lola-muktā-phalānvitā
Translation: Adorned with a jewelled necklace whose locket sways with a trembling pearl.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Ornament upon ornament — the restless pearl on the locket over the breast. The apavāda turns on the single word lola, “trembling, swaying”: the ceaseless motion of the adornment over the still breast is the motion of the world — the play of the guṇas, the turning of the vṛttis — over the motionless witness. Watch the swinging pearl and find the unmoving ground on which it swings.
Śrī Vidyā: The pearl at the heart-region foreshadows the bindu at the centre; cintāka (the pendant, kin to cintā, thought) hints at the mind-jewel held over the heart-lotus, where thought is offered back to its source.
Śloka 14
कामेश्वर-प्रेमरत्न-मणि-प्रतिपण-स्तनी ।
नाभ्यालवाल-रोमालि-लता-फल-कुचद्वयी ॥ १४॥
kāmeśvara-prema-ratna-maṇi-pratipaṇa-stanī |
nābhy-ālavāla-romāli-latā-phala-kuca-dvayī ǁ 14 ǁ
33. कामेश्वरप्रेमरत्नमणिप्रतिपणस्तनी — Kāmeśvara-prema-ratna-maṇi-pratipaṇa-stanī
Translation: Whose breasts are the very price (pratipaṇa) bartered for the jewel of Kāmeśvara's love.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: An economy of love is superimposed — Her breasts “exchanged” for the love-gem of Śiva. The apavāda dissolves the transaction: where giver and receiver are one Self, there is no exchange, only the appearance of two faces of a single fullness. The barter between Śiva and Śakti is the play (līlā) by which the One delights in seeming to give to itself.
Śrī Vidyā: The breasts as the founts of nourishment are the wellsprings of grace (anugraha) and the nectar of immortality the tradition pours; the mutual “purchase” is again sāmarasya — a love that is the self-love of the non-dual.
34. नाभ्यालवालरोमालिलताफलकुचद्वयी — Nābhy-ālavāla-romāli-latā-phala-kuca-dvayī
Translation: Whose two breasts are the fruit of the creeper — the line of down — rooted in the basin of the navel.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A single organic image: the navel as a watering-basin (ālavāla), the fine line of down as a climbing vine, the breasts as its fruit. The apavāda lies in the direction of growth — the figure traces a rising from the navel upward, and so maps the ascent of the life-current from the navel toward the heart. The fruit is what the upward movement bears; the contemplative is drawn to follow the vine inward and up, not outward.
Śrī Vidyā: The path is explicit here: the navel (maṇipūra) as basin, the romāli as the slender suṣumṇā-creeper, the ascent of kuṇḍalinī from the navel toward the heart. The body-portrait doubles as the yogic diagram.
Śloka 15
लक्ष्यरोम-लताधारता-समुन्नेय-मध्यमा ।
स्तनभार-दलन्मध्य-पट्टबन्ध-वलित्रया ॥ १५॥
lakṣya-roma-latā-dhāratā-samunneya-madhyamā |
stana-bhāra-dalan-madhya-paṭṭa-bandha-valitrayā ǁ 15 ǁ
35. लक्ष्यरोमलताधारतासमुन्नेयमध्यमा — Lakṣya-roma-latā-dhāratā-samunneya-madhyamā
Translation: Whose waist is so slender it can only be inferred — as that which holds up the barely visible vine of down.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The waist is so fine that its very existence must be inferred (samunneya), not seen — deduced only as the support that holds up the slender vine of down. The apavāda is striking: the madhya, the middle, is known by inference (anumāna) alone, never by direct perception — exactly as the conditioning “I”-knot is never itself an object, but only inferred from its effects. Seek the waist directly and find nothing there; seek the ego directly, and the same.
Śrī Vidyā: The all-but-absent middle is the subtle knot on the body-axis, and the slenderness of the central channel — “fine as a lotus-fibre,” as a later name will say (bisa-tantu-tanīyasī). The middle that is scarcely there is the way of ascent.
36. स्तनभारदलन्मध्यपट्टबन्धवलित्रया — Stana-bhāra-dalan-madhya-paṭṭa-bandha-valitrayā
Translation: Bearing the three folds (trivalī), as though Her waist, near to breaking under the weight of Her breasts, were braced with a binding band.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The three folds are superimposed as a mark of beauty and of the waist's fragility. The apavāda reads the three: tradition takes the trivalī as the three guṇas (sattva, rajas, tamas), or the three states, or the three knots — the threefold by which the single Self appears bound and bent. The bracing “band” is the appearance of holding-together, the ahaṃkāra that seems to keep the play from falling apart.
Śrī Vidyā: The trivalī are read as the three granthis (Brahma, Viṣṇu, Rudra) upon the central channel, or as the three kūṭas inscribed on the body — the axis articulated into its three sacred segments.
Śloka 16
अरुणारुण-कौसुम्भ-वस्त्र-भास्वत्-कटीतटी ।
रत्न-किङ्किणिका-रम्य-रशना-दाम-भूषिता ॥ १६॥
aruṇāruṇa-kausumbha-vastra-bhāsvat-kaṭītaṭī |
ratna-kiṅkiṇikā-ramya-raśanā-dāma-bhūṣitā ǁ 16 ǁ
At the hips the description crosses again — from the madhya-kūṭa into the śakti-kūṭa, the third peak of the mantra, which governs the body from the hips to the feet. It is fitting that this lowest peak, the seat of generative power, should open beneath a veil of deep red — the colour of rajas, the creative spilling-forth.
37. अरुणारुणकौसुम्भवस्त्रभास्वत्कटीतटी — Aruṇāruṇa-kausumbha-vastra-bhāsvat-kaṭītaṭī
Translation: Whose hips are radiant with a garment dyed deep safflower-red — red upon red.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The recurring crimson returns, now doubled (aruṇa-aruṇa) as the garment over the hips. The apavāda turns on what a garment is: that which covers. The deep-red veil drawn across the lower body is the loveliest figure of māyā — the beautiful concealment (āvaraṇa) that at once hides and adorns its ground. (This veiling power belongs to the formulation of the later tradition, the Vedāntasāra and the Pañcadaśī, not to Śaṅkara's own bhāṣya.) The cloth can be drawn aside; the radiance beneath cannot be removed.
Śrī Vidyā: The red garment at the hips marks the threshold of the śakti-kūṭa; kausumbha-red is rajas, and the veil is the māyā-paṭa drawn across the seat of generative power.
38. रत्नकिङ्किणिकारम्यरशनादामभूषिता — Ratna-kiṅkiṇikā-ramya-raśanā-dāma-bhūṣitā
Translation: Graced with a girdle-string lovely with tiny jewelled bells.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The cincture of small ringing bells is superimposed as ornament and as sound. The apavāda: the bells ring — sound once more, now encircling the seat of power; and raśanā (girdle) comes from the root “to bind,” a binding-around drawn at the very threshold of manifestation. What girds the generative centre is the subtle sound (nāda) ringing at creation's edge; the bells are heard, but the binder is not bound.
Śrī Vidyā: The girdle at the hip is the boundary of the śakti-kūṭa; the jingling is the nāda sounding as power descends into form — the audible rim of creation about the Mūlādhāra–Svādhiṣṭhāna region.
Śloka 17
कामेश-ज्ञात-सौभाग्य-मार्दवोरु-द्वयान्विता ।
माणिक्य-मुकुटाकार-जानुद्वय-विराजिता ॥ १७॥
kāmeśa-jñāta-saubhāgya-mārdavoru-dvayānvitā |
māṇikya-mukuṭākāra-jānu-dvaya-virājitā ǁ 17 ǁ
39. कामेशज्ञातसौभाग्यमार्दवोरुद्वयान्विता — Kāmeśa-jñāta-saubhāgya-mārdavoru-dvayānvitā
Translation: Possessed of two soft thighs whose tender beauty is known to Kāmeśa alone.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The superimposition turns to secrecy — a loveliness “known to Śiva alone.” The apavāda: what is known to Śiva alone is known to none other because there is no other; the innermost knowledge of Śakti belongs to Śiva precisely because Śiva and Śakti are one knower. The secret beauty is the self-knowledge of the non-dual, closed to the dividing mind.
Śrī Vidyā: The hidden saubhāgya is the rahasya of the Śrī Vidyā, disclosed only within the Śiva-Śakti identity; saubhāgya is also a technical name for the auspicious power of the vidyā itself, and Bhāskararāya's great commentary bears the name Saubhāgya-bhāskara.
40. माणिक्यमुकुटाकारजानुद्वयविराजिता — Māṇikya-mukuṭākāra-jānu-dvaya-virājitā
Translation: Whose two knees shine like crowns fashioned of ruby (māṇikya).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The knees are likened to crowns — the emblem of the highest set, surprisingly, at the joint of the leg. The apavāda quietly overturns the body's hierarchy: the crown, sign of sovereignty, appears at the knee, the humble joint of bending and kneeling — as if to say that high and low are equal ornaments upon the one body. Awareness is not divided by the ranks the mind assigns its parts.
Śrī Vidyā: Ruby (māṇikya), the sun-gem, returns — first the diadem, now the knees — the radiant red gathering downward into the lower limbs as the descent proceeds toward the ground.
Śloka 18
इन्द्रगोप-परिक्षिप्त-स्मरतूणाभ-जङ्घिका ।
गूढगुल्फा कूर्मपृष्ठ-जयिष्णु-प्रपदान्विता ॥ १८॥
indragopa-parikṣipta-smara-tūṇābha-jaṅghikā |
gūḍha-gulphā kūrma-pṛṣṭha-jayiṣṇu-prapadānvitā ǁ 18 ǁ
As the description nears the ground, its images turn toward concealment and in-gathering — the hidden ankle, the tortoise — fitting emblems of withdrawal as we approach the base, the secret seat of the coiled power.
41. इन्द्रगोपपरिक्षिप्तस्मरतूणाभजङ्घिका — Indragopa-parikṣipta-smara-tūṇābha-jaṅghikā
Translation: Whose calves are like the quiver of Kāma (Smara), strewn over with crimson indragopa gleams.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The calf is a quiver — the case that holds Kāma's flower-arrows, which an earlier name revealed to be the five subtle elements. The apavāda: the quiver holds the arrows that are loosed into the world; the very seeds of sensory creation are stored within Her limbs, hers to release and to withdraw. The scattered red specks are again the aruṇa, the creative warmth, sprinkled down to the calves.
Śrī Vidyā: To carry the quiver of the five arrows (tanmātras) in the body is to locate the seeds of manifestation in the descending current; indragopa-red is the rajas dappling the lower limbs.
42. गूढगुल्फा — Gūḍha-gulphā
Translation: Whose ankle-bones are concealed (gūḍha), smoothly rounded.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A single tender word — “hidden ankles” — superimposed as the perfection of form, with no bone jutting out. The apavāda lives in gūḍha, “hidden, secret”: as the portrait nears the ground, the joints withdraw from sight, the manifest tapering toward the concealed. What is most fundamental — the support nearest the earth — is least displayed, as the ground of awareness is the least objectifiable, “hidden” precisely because it is the seer that is never seen.
Śrī Vidyā: The concealed ankle is the discreet junction near the base; gūḍha echoes the register of secrecy (rahasya) proper to the approach toward the Mūlādhāra, the hidden seat of the coiled kuṇḍalinī.
43. कूर्मपृष्ठजयिष्णुप्रपदान्विता — Kūrma-pṛṣṭha-jayiṣṇu-prapadānvitā
Translation: Whose arched feet-tops (prapada) outdo the rounded back of a tortoise.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The instep “conquers” the tortoise's shell in the beauty of its curve. The apavāda turns on the kūrma: the tortoise is the classic emblem of withdrawal — the senses drawn in as a tortoise draws in its limbs. The foot that surpasses the tortoise surpasses even that effortful withdrawing — pointing to the natural, spontaneous in-gathering in which the senses come to rest in the Self without strain.
Śrī Vidyā: In cosmology the kūrma also bears the earth and the seat of the worlds; Her foot upon the tortoise-curve sets the support of all worlds beneath Her tread. The descent is now complete at the feet, which the following names will glorify in turn.
Śloka 19
नख-दीधिति-संछन्न-नमज्जन-तमोगुणा ।
पदद्वय-प्रभाजाल-पराकृत-सरोरुहा ॥ १९॥
nakha-dīdhiti-saṃchanna-namaj-jana-tamo-guṇā |
pada-dvaya-prabhā-jāla-parākṛta-saroruhā ǁ 19 ǁ
44. नखदीधितिसंछन्ननमज्जनतमोगुणा — Nakha-dīdhiti-saṃchanna-namaj-jana-tamo-guṇā
Translation: The radiance of whose toenails covers over (dispels) the darkness — the tamo-guṇa — of those who bow before Her.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The light of Her toenails dispels the tamo-guṇa of those who bow. The apavāda names the goal outright: tamas, the guṇa of inertia and the density of ignorance, is undone — not by the devotee's effort but where the light at the lowest point of Her form meets the lowest act, the bowing of the head. Where the seat of pride is laid down at Her feet, the darkness lifts; humility is the meeting-place of grace and knowledge.
Śrī Vidyā: The light at the feet dissolving tamas is the descent of grace (anugraha, the fifth of Her cosmic functions) reaching the prostrate; the moon-cool radiance of the nails (nakha-dīdhiti) falls as nectar upon the bowed head.
45. पदद्वयप्रभाजालपराकृतसरोरुहा — Pada-dvaya-prabhā-jāla-parākṛta-saroruhā
Translation: The web of light from whose two feet routs (outshines) the lotus (saroruha).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her feet outshine the lotus — the seat of every deity and the emblem of the awakened heart. The apavāda: the lotus is the holiest of supports, yet it is “driven off,” surpassed; for the feet of the Self need no seat and outshine even the most sacred symbol of attainment. To clutch at the lotus — at any state, any attainment — is to be shown a greater light that renders the symbol needless.
Śrī Vidyā: Her feet are themselves the supreme lotus-seat; the net of radiance (prabhā-jāla) is the spreading light of the pādukā, worshipped in Śrī Vidyā as the seat of the guru-lineage and the doorway through which grace enters.
Śloka 20
सिञ्जान-मणिमञ्जीर-मण्डित-श्री-पदाम्बुजा । (शिञ्जान)
मराली-मन्दगमना महालावण्य-शेवधिः ॥ २०॥
siñjāna-maṇi-mañjīra-maṇḍita-śrī-padāmbujā |
marālī-manda-gamanā mahā-lāvaṇya-śevadhiḥ ǁ 20 ǁ
46. सिञ्जानमणिमञ्जीरमण्डितश्रीपदाम्बुजा — Siñjāna-maṇi-mañjīra-maṇḍita-śrī-padāmbujā
Translation: Whose glorious lotus-feet are graced with gem-set anklets that ring softly.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The feet are lotuses, the anklets ringing — superimposed as the culminating ornament of the form, now that we have arrived from crown to sole. The apavāda: the ringing at the feet is the same nāda heard at the girdle, sound encircling the lowest point and so marking the descent's completion. The lotus-feet to which the whole hymn returns as its refuge are the place where the constructed form, built limb by limb, is at last offered back — one bows, and the building is complete only in being surrendered.
Śrī Vidyā: The glorious lotus-feet (śrī-padāmbuja) and the pādukā are the supreme object of worship in the paramparā — the seat of the lineage of masters; the jingling anklets are the nāda of the awakened base.
47. मरालीमन्दगमना — Marālī-manda-gamanā
Translation: Whose slow, graceful gait is like a young swan's (marālī).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Motion is superimposed — She walks, gently, swan-like. The apavāda turns on the swan (haṃsa): the swan is the classic emblem of the liberated knower (paramahaṃsa) and of the breath itself (haṃ-saḥ, the so'ham of every breath). Her gait is the movement of the breath, the haṃsa coming and going — gentle, unhurried, the rhythm in which the Self moves the world while itself unmoving.
Śrī Vidyā: The swan-gait is the haṃsa-mantra, the ajapā-japa of the breath that runs unbidden; the swan also parts milk from water — the viveka, the discernment, of the awakened.
48. महालावण्यशेवधिः — Mahā-lāvaṇya-śevadhiḥ
Translation: The treasure-trove (śevadhi) of supreme loveliness (lāvaṇya).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: With the form complete, the hymn gathers it into one word: She is the treasury of all loveliness, the single summation of every beauty just described. The apavāda: a treasury is where scattered riches are recognised as one wealth; all the beauties named limb by limb were never many but one — lāvaṇya, the liquid grace that is the whole and not the sum of parts. The many features resolve into a single splendour, as the thousand names resolve into the one Self.
Śrī Vidyā: Lāvaṇya is the integral radiance of the bindu from which every feature was but a ray; the “treasury” is the central point in which the whole Śrī Cakra — the entire form — is held in seed.
Śloka 21
सर्वारुणाऽनवद्याङ्गी सर्वाभरण-भूषिता ।
शिव-कामेश्वराङ्कस्था शिवा स्वाधीन-वल्लभा ॥ २१॥
sarvāruṇā'navadyāṅgī sarvābharaṇa-bhūṣitā |
śiva-kāmeśvarāṅkasthā śivā svādhīna-vallabhā ǁ 21 ǁ
With this śloka the keśādi-pādānta-varṇana is complete. The four summary names gather the whole portrait — the single colour, the flawlessness, the totality of ornament — and then resolve it into the icon of Śiva and Śakti seated as one. The form, having been built up in full, now stands ready to be set aside: from here the hymn will begin its great negations.
49. सर्वारुणा — Sarvāruṇā
Translation: Wholly crimson — red through and through.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The single colour that has run through the entire description — aruṇa — is now declared total: sarva-aruṇā, red everywhere, without remainder. The apavāda: when one quality pervades all with no exception, distinction within it vanishes — an all-red field has no figure against ground, no this-red set off from that. The total aruṇa is the one undifferentiated light, the dawn before any object has risen, in which the many-coloured world of distinctions has not yet appeared.
Śrī Vidyā: Sarvāruṇā is the all-pervading vimarśa, the single red self-awareness saturating every enclosure of the Śrī Cakra — the colour of the bindu radiating to the whole maṇḍala.
50. अनवद्याङ्गी — Anavadyāṅgī
Translation: Whose every limb is flawless, beyond reproach.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Flawlessness is superimposed upon the now-complete form. The apavāda: an-avadya, “that against which nothing can be said,” heard strictly, is the absence of any predicate that could be denied — that to which no negation applies. The body described in full is, in the same breath, declared beyond the reach of the very limits and divisions that description implies. The flawless form is the seamless (akhaṇḍa) Self that no “but” can qualify.
Śrī Vidyā: The flawless integral body is the perfect maṇḍala — the Śrī Cakra without defect, every enclosure in its place, the whole an unbroken symmetry about the centre.
51. सर्वाभरणभूषिता — Sarvābharaṇa-bhūṣitā
Translation: Adorned with every ornament.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The totality of ornament is superimposed — every adornment, named and unnamed, gathered upon Her. The apavāda: ornaments (ābharaṇa) are precisely what is added to the body and can be taken off. To be “adorned with all ornaments” is thus to inventory the entire removable surface — the whole of the saguṇa adornment that the coming negations, Nirlepā, Nirmalā and the rest, will strip away. To know Her as wearing every ornament is to know that none of them is Her.
Śrī Vidyā: All ornaments are the totality of the tattvas and powers worn by the bindu; in worship, the sixty-four services (catuḥṣaṣṭy-upacāra) are offered — the full adornment that decks the central deity.
52. शिवकामेश्वराङ्कस्था — Śiva-kāmeśvarāṅkasthā
Translation: Who is seated upon the lap (aṅka) of Śiva-Kāmeśvara.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The portrait resolves into relation: She rests upon Śiva's lap. The apavāda: the “two” seated as one figure are prakāśa and vimarśa, light and its self-awareness — never separable, the seat and the seated a single reality shown as two for the heart's sake. She on His lap is awareness resting in being, and being knowing itself as awareness; remove the appearance of two, and the icon is the non-dual itself.
Śrī Vidyā: This is the classic Kāmeśvara–Kāmeśvarī icon at the heart of the Śrī Cakra's bindu; their union upon the single seat (the pañca-brahmāsana) is the sāmarasya the whole vidyā contemplates.
53. शिवा — Śivā
Translation: The auspicious one — Śiva in the feminine, the very Śakti of Śiva.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The shortest name yet, and the fullest superimposition-and-retraction in a single word: Śivā — named identically with Śiva, differing only by the feminine ending. The apavāda is built into the grammar: the name asserts non-difference (Śiva is Śivā) in the very instant it marks a distinction (the gendered ending). That slender “ā” is the whole of māyā — the faint inflection by which the one Śiva appears as Śiva-and-Śivā. Drop the inflection and there is only Śiva, the auspicious ground; the world is that single “ā” of self-reference.
Śrī Vidyā: Śiva and Śivā are prakāśa and vimarśa; “Śivā” is the vimarśa-śakti without which — the tradition says — Śiva cannot so much as stir. She is the “ā,” the icchā by which the seemingly inert absolute becomes the living, world-projecting One.
54. स्वाधीनवल्लभा — Svādhīna-vallabhā
Translation: She who holds Her Beloved (Śiva) wholly under Her own sway.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A startling reversal closes the form-description: She, seated on His lap, is the one in command — Her Beloved is svādhīna, dependent upon Her, subject to Her will. The apavāda: Śiva “under Her sway” means that the static ground does nothing of itself; all activity — creation, the very stirring into manifestation — belongs to the Śakti. Yet “Her Beloved under Her control” is still a relation of two, and pressed home it too dissolves: controller and controlled are one self-aware reality, the “control” being only awareness's free play within itself. With this the body is complete, the couple is shown, and the hymn stands poised to strip every attribute away.
Śrī Vidyā: Svādhīna-vallabhā names the supremacy of Śakti within the union — Śiva the unmoving substrate, Śakti the autonomous power (svātantrya). This is the doctrinal heart of the tradition's non-difference with primacy-of-Śakti, and the closing cadence of the portrait before the great negations begin.
Devanagari per the sanskritdocuments.org recension (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, Uttarakhaṇḍa; Hayagrīva–Agastya saṃvāda). Transliteration, translation, and commentary original to this edition. — End of Part II.
