Part VII — Nāmas 144–192 (Ślokas 45–50): The Negation Sustained, and the Turn to Grace
ॐ श्रीमात्रे नमः · oṃ śrīmātre namaḥ
The negation sustained
Part VII sustains the great negation to its resolution. The privative names continue to toll — eternally free, changeless, beyond the manifold, without ego, without delusion, without division, without death — and within them a doubled rhythm rings out: again and again a name of the Goddess's own freedom from a limit is answered by a name in which she destroys that same limit in the devotee — passionless and the churner of passion, undivided and the destroyer of division. The two are one teaching: her attributelessness is itself the grace that unbinds. And the long exhalation does not end in a void. At the last it turns — a concrete feature returns, the inaccessible Durgā is named the sure refuge, and the whole purpose of the stripping is spoken in two words: she who destroys sorrow and gives joy. The negations were never bleak; they were the clearing-away of all that hid the bliss the Self already is.
॥ श्रीललितासहस्रनामस्तोत्रम् ॥
The Thousand Names — Ślokas 45–50 (Nāmas 144–192)
Śloka 45
नित्यमुक्ता निर्विकारा निष्प्रपञ्चा निराश्रया ।
नित्यशुद्धा नित्यबुद्धा निरवद्या निरन्तरा ॥ ४५॥
nitya-muktā nirvikārā niṣprapañcā nirāśrayā |
nitya-śuddhā nitya-buddhā niravadyā nirantarā ǁ 45 ǁ
The negation does not pause; it deepens. This śloka and those that follow sustain the great apavāda, and within it a rhythm emerges: a privative naming the Goddess's own freedom from a limit (nir-, niṣ-) is repeatedly answered by an active name in which she destroys that same limit in the devotee (-nāśinī, -mathanī, -ghnī, -śamanī, -hantrī). The two halves are one teaching: she is free of the fault because she is the ground it never touched, and by that very freedom she dissolves it in whoever turns to her. To name her “passionless” and “churner of passion” in one breath is to say that her attributelessness is itself the grace that unbinds.
144. नित्यमुक्ता — Nitya-muktā
Translation: The eternally liberated, never bound at any time.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The cascade resumes with freedom: she is “ever free” — not freed, but free from the first, having never been bound. The apavāda: liberation is usually imagined as an event, a release from prior bondage; nitya-muktā denies even that — the Self was never caught, the bondage only ever apparent. There is no moment of becoming free, only the recognition of a freedom that was always the case.
Śrī Vidyā: Nitya-muktā is the ever-free Absolute; the upāsaka's “liberation” is the waking to a freedom the Self never lacked.
145. निर्विकारा — Nirvikārā
Translation: The changeless, free of all modification (vikāra).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without vikāra” — without alteration. The apavāda: every change belongs to what is composite and in time; she is the unchanging in which all change is registered, herself altering not at all. The witness does not become what it witnesses.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirvikārā is the immutable Brahman, the kūṭastha, ever the same beneath the flux of modifications.
146. निष्प्रपञ्चा — Niṣprapañcā
Translation: Beyond the manifold (prapañca), free of all expansion into multiplicity.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Prapañca is the spread-out world, the fivefold expansion of name-and-form; she is niṣprapañcā, without it. The apavāda: the entire diversified universe is denied of her as her own reality — not that the world is not experienced, but that it adds nothing to, and divides nothing in, the One. She is the unexpanded in which the expansion appears, and to which, on inquiry, it is reduced (prapañca-upaśama).
Śrī Vidyā: Niṣprapañcā is the Absolute prior to and beyond the manifest cosmos; the world-expansion is her appearance, not her substance.
147. निराश्रया — Nirāśrayā
Translation: Without support or refuge other than herself; depending on nothing.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Echoing Nirādhārā, she is “without āśraya” — leaning on nothing. The apavāda: all things depend on a ground; she is the ground that depends on no further ground — self-existent, the one reality that needs no other to be. To seek her support is to seek the unsupported support of all.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirāśrayā is the self-grounded Absolute, the āśraya of all that itself rests on none.
148. नित्यशुद्धा — Nitya-śuddhā
Translation: The ever-pure, never touched by impurity.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Ever pure” — purity not achieved but innate. The apavāda: purification is the removal of an adventitious stain; but she was never stained, so her purity is not won, only recognised. The mirror is not cleaned; it is seen never to have been soiled.
Śrī Vidyā: Nitya-śuddhā is the eternally pure consciousness, the ground the malas only seemed to cover.
149. नित्यबुद्धा — Nitya-buddhā
Translation: The ever-awakened, eternally aware.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Ever awake” — awareness that never sleeps, never dawns and never sets. The apavāda: enlightenment is imagined as an awakening from a prior sleep; nitya-buddhā denies the prior sleep — consciousness was never unconscious of itself, only seemingly forgotten. The awakening is to a wakefulness that was never interrupted.
Śrī Vidyā: Nitya-buddhā is the ever-luminous Self, self-aware without break; the yogin's “awakening” is to this beginningless wakefulness.
150. निरवद्या — Niravadyā
Translation: The faultless, beyond all blame or defect (avadya).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without avadya” — nothing to be spoken against (as we met at Anavadyāṅgī). The apavāda: a fault is a falling-short measured against some standard; she is that against which all standards are measured, and so beyond the very possibility of defect. What could the flawless fall short of?
Śrī Vidyā: Niravadyā is the impeccable Absolute, complete and without lack.
151. निरन्तरा — Nirantarā
Translation: Without inner gap or interval; continuous, undivided within.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without antara” — without a between. The apavāda: antara is an interval, an inner break; she is unbroken, without internal division, without any gap in which a second thing could lodge. Consciousness is seamless — there is no seam in it where “I” might be cut from “that.” Continuity without interruption is non-duality felt as undividedness.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirantarā is the unbroken, all-pervading One, without the antara that would make room for two.
Śloka 46
निष्कारणा निष्कलङ्का निरुपाधिर्निरीश्वरा ।
नीरागा रागमथनी निर्मदा मदनाशिनी ॥ ४६॥
niṣkāraṇā niṣkalaṅkā nirupādhir-nirīśvarā |
nīrāgā rāga-mathanī nirmadā mada-nāśinī ǁ 46 ǁ
152. निष्कारणा — Niṣkāraṇā
Translation: The causeless — herself uncaused, the first cause of all.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without cause” — nothing produced her. The apavāda: every effect points back to a cause, and the regress ends only in the uncaused; she is that — not an effect, never produced, the causeless ground from which causality itself proceeds. To ask her cause is to ask what lies before the first.
Śrī Vidyā: Niṣkāraṇā is the uncaused cause (anādi-kāraṇa), the ground that grounds the chain of causes without being a link in it.
153. निष्कलङ्का — Niṣkalaṅkā
Translation: The spotless, without blemish (kalaṅka).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without kalaṅka” — without the dark spot (as the moon is spotted, but she is not). The apavāda: the blemish is the seeming taint of limitation upon the limitless; she is the spotless full moon of awareness, whose light no mark divides — the autumn-moon face of the last part, now without even its spot.
Śrī Vidyā: Niṣkalaṅkā is the immaculate Absolute, the flawless lunar disc of pure consciousness.
154. निरुपाधिः — Nirupādhiḥ
Translation: Without any limiting adjunct (upādhi).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A pivotal Vedāntic word: upādhi, the adjunct that seems to condition the unconditioned — as a clear crystal seems red beside a red flower. The apavāda: she has no upādhi; the body, mind, and world that seem to limit and characterise awareness are adventitious adjuncts that never enter the awareness they appear to qualify. Remove the upādhis in thought, and the One stands unconditioned — which it always was.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirupādhiḥ is the unconditioned Brahman; the whole work of discrimination is the recognition that the upādhis colour the Self only in appearance.
155. निरीश्वरा — Nirīśvarā
Translation: Who has no ruler above her; the supreme without a superior.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without an īśvara over her” — no lord above the Lord. The apavāda: even God-as-ruler implies a ruled, a relation, a duality; she is nirīśvarā, beyond even that — not a sovereign over subjects but the sole reality beside which there is no second to rule or be ruled. The very category of lordship is left behind, and the last subtle theism dissolves into pure non-duality.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirīśvarā is the Absolute beyond even Īśvara-as-relation; the supreme that has none above and, in truth, no other at all.
156. नीरागा — Nīrāgā
Translation: Without passion or attachment (rāga).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without rāga” — no colouring of desire-attachment (and rāga is also “tint”). The apavāda: passion tints the mind toward its objects; she is uncoloured, the clear awareness in which attractions arise and pass without staining the seer.
Śrī Vidyā: Nīrāgā is the dispassionate Absolute, the ground untinted by the rāga that binds.
157. रागमथनी — Rāga-mathanī
Translation: The destroyer (churner) of passion in her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The first of the doubled pair: being herself passionless, she churns passion away in those who turn to her. The apavāda: her grace does not war against desire from outside; her mere recognised presence — the fullness that lacks nothing — leaves passion no ground, and it dissolves. Freedom from rāga is the very thing that unbinds rāga in another.
Śrī Vidyā: Rāga-mathanī grinds down attachment; the dispassion that she is becomes, for the devotee, the power that loosens craving.
158. निर्मदा — Nirmadā
Translation: Free of pride and intoxication (mada).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without mada” — without the intoxication of self-importance. The apavāda: pride swells the separate self; where there is no separate self (she is the All), there is nothing to be proud, and no other before whom to be proud. Pridelessness is the natural condition of the One without a second.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirmadā is free of the intoxications — of wealth, power, learning — that delude the limited self.
159. मदनाशिनी — Mada-nāśinī
Translation: Who destroys pride in her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair: free of mada, she dissolves it in others. The apavāda: humility before her is the puncturing of the swollen “I”; what melts pride is the recognition of a greatness that is one's own true Self, before which the small self's vanity has no occasion.
Śrī Vidyā: Mada-nāśinī humbles the proud, dissolving the intoxications by the descent of grace.
Śloka 47
निश्चिन्ता निरहंकारा निर्मोहा मोहनाशिनी ।
निर्ममा ममताहन्त्री निष्पापा पापनाशिनी ॥ ४७॥
niścintā nirahaṅkārā nirmohā moha-nāśinī |
nirmamā mamatā-hantrī niṣpāpā pāpa-nāśinī ǁ 47 ǁ
160. निश्चिन्ता — Niścintā
Translation: Free of all care and anxiety (cintā).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without cintā” — without the gnawing of worry. The apavāda: anxiety is the mind's projection of a future loss to a self that fears for itself; she, lacking nothing and fearing nothing, is the worriless ground in which all worry is seen to be about a self that was never at risk.
Śrī Vidyā: Niścintā is the untroubled Absolute, free of the cintā that besets the bound.
161. निरहंकारा — Nirahaṅkārā
Translation: Without the I-maker (ahaṅkāra), free of egoity.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A central name: “without ahaṅkāra,” the very faculty that fabricates the separate “I.” The apavāda: the ahaṅkāra is the first knot of the superimposition (pierced as the Rudra-granthi); she is without it — pure I-am-ness, the real aham, with no “maker” appended, no fabricated ego laid over the true self-being. To be nirahaṅkārā is to be the I that needs no I-making.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirahaṅkārā is the Self free of the ahaṅkāra-tattva; she is the pure aham of “aham brahmāsmi,” not the constructed ego.
162. निर्मोहा — Nirmohā
Translation: Free of delusion (moha).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without moha” — without the confusion that takes one thing for another. The apavāda: moha is precisely the superimposition itself — mistaking the rope for the snake, the Self for the body; she is the clarity in which no such mistaking occurs, delusionless because she is the very light by which delusion would have to be seen, and is dispelled.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirmohā is the undeluded Absolute, free of the primal confusion at the root of bondage.
163. मोहनाशिनी — Moha-nāśinī
Translation: Who destroys delusion in her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair: being undeluded, she undoes delusion in others. The apavāda: her grace is the dawning of discrimination, in whose light the snake is seen as rope; she destroys moha not by adding knowledge but by removing the misperception — the very work of the apavāda itself.
Śrī Vidyā: Moha-nāśinī is the dispeller of delusion, the grace that grants viveka and lifts the primal confusion.
164. निर्ममा — Nirmamā
Translation: Free of the sense of “mine” (mamatā), without possessiveness.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without mama” — without “mine.” The apavāda: where the ego fabricates the “I,” the “mine” extends it into the world by appropriation; she is without it, for the One that is everything can call nothing “mine” — there is no other to set “mine” against “not-mine.” All is, but nothing is owned.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirmamā is free of mamatā, the possessive grip that, with ahaṅkāra, forms the double knot of bondage.
165. ममताहन्त्री — Mamatā-hantrī
Translation: Who slays the sense of “mine” in her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair: free of mamatā, she kills it in others. The apavāda: surrender to her is the loosening of “mine” — for what is laid at her feet is no longer clutched as one's own; she “slays mamatā” by receiving all that the devotee releases, until nothing is left to call one's own and the grip dissolves.
Śrī Vidyā: Mamatā-hantrī destroys the sense of ownership; self-offering to her is the practical undoing of “mine.”
166. निष्पापा — Niṣpāpā
Translation: The sinless, untouched by any taint of wrongdoing (pāpa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without pāpa” — without sin. The apavāda: sin is a deed and its residue clinging to a doer; she is the actionless witness (Niṣkriyā) and the unstainable (Nirlepā), to whom no deed adheres and from whom none proceeds in bondage. The sinless is that in which sin, like all else, merely appears and is seen through.
Śrī Vidyā: Niṣpāpā is the Absolute untouched by merit or demerit, beyond the duality of puṇya and pāpa.
167. पापनाशिनी — Pāpa-nāśinī
Translation: Who destroys the sins of her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair: herself sinless, she consumes the sins of those who turn to her. The apavāda: the remembrance of her — the turning toward the Self — is itself the fire in which the residues burn; she destroys pāpa not by overlooking it but by dissolving the doer-sense to which it clung, after which there is no one left to whom the sin can adhere.
Śrī Vidyā: Pāpa-nāśinī is the remover of sins; her name and grace are held to burn the karmic store of the devotee.
Śloka 48
निष्क्रोधा क्रोधशमनी निर्लोभा लोभनाशिनी ।
निःसंशया संशयघ्नी निर्भवा भवनाशिनी ॥ ४८॥
niṣkrodhā krodha-śamanī nirlobhā lobha-nāśinī |
niḥsaṃśayā saṃśaya-ghnī nirbhavā bhava-nāśinī ǁ 48 ǁ
168. निष्क्रोधा — Niṣkrodhā
Translation: Free of anger (krodha).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without krodha” — without wrath. The apavāda: anger arises when a desiring self is thwarted; she, desireless and lacking nothing, has no thwarted will from which anger could spring. Even the “wrath” of the goad among the early names was her instrument, never her affliction.
Śrī Vidyā: Niṣkrodhā is free of the anger born of obstructed desire — the krodha the early names showed as her tool, not her bondage.
169. क्रोधशमनी — Krodha-śamanī
Translation: Who quells anger in her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair: free of anger, she stills it in others. The apavāda: her peace communicated is the cooling of wrath; the recognition that nothing of the true Self can be thwarted removes the very ground from which anger springs.
Śrī Vidyā: Krodha-śamanī pacifies wrath, the descent of her śānti quieting the heat of krodha.
170. निर्लोभा — Nirlobhā
Translation: Free of greed (lobha).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without lobha” — without grasping for more. The apavāda: greed is the hunger of a self that feels incomplete; she is the fullness (pūrṇa) itself, to which nothing can be added and which therefore reaches for nothing. The full does not grasp.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirlobhā is free of the greed that drives the sense of lack; she is the all-sufficient pūrṇatā.
171. लोभनाशिनी — Lobha-nāśinī
Translation: Who destroys greed in her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair: free of greed, she dissolves it in others. The apavāda: to taste even a little of her fullness is to lose the appetite of lack; she destroys lobha by satisfying, at the root, the hunger that no acquisition could fill.
Śrī Vidyā: Lobha-nāśinī ends grasping by granting the fullness that greed was vainly seeking.
172. निःसंशया — Niḥsaṃśayā
Translation: Free of all doubt (saṃśaya).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without saṃśaya” — without the wavering between this and that. The apavāda: doubt is the mind oscillating between alternatives; she is the undivided certainty prior to alternatives — not a belief firmly held but the self-evidence of being, which no doubt can touch because doubt itself arises within it.
Śrī Vidyā: Niḥsaṃśayā is the doubtless Absolute, the self-certifying awareness in which all doubt is staged and stilled.
173. संशयघ्नी — Saṃśaya-ghnī
Translation: Who slays the doubts of her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair: doubtless herself, she kills doubt in others. The apavāda: the direct recognition she grants — the immediate self-evidence of the Self — leaves doubt no foothold; she slays saṃśaya not by argument but by the dawning of what needs no proof.
Śrī Vidyā: Saṃśaya-ghnī destroys the seeker's doubt, by the word of the guru and the immediacy of self-knowledge.
174. निर्भवा — Nirbhavā
Translation: Free of becoming and rebirth (bhava); the unborn.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without bhava” — beyond the round of becoming. The apavāda: bhava is birth-and-existence in the flux; she is unborn (aja), not entering the stream of becoming at all — the changeless that neither comes to be nor passes away. She was Bhavānī, ground of becoming; she is also Nirbhavā, herself beyond it.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirbhavā is the unborn Absolute, beyond the saṃsāric round of bhava.
175. भवनाशिनी — Bhava-nāśinī
Translation: Who destroys the round of becoming (saṃsāra) for her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair: herself beyond becoming, she ends it for those who turn to her. The apavāda: she “destroys bhava” by dissolving the ignorance that sustained the round — once the Self is known, the engine of rebirth (the doer-sense seeking its fruits) falls still. Bhavāraṇya-kuṭhārikā returns here as Bhava-nāśinī.
Śrī Vidyā: Bhava-nāśinī is the granter of liberation from saṃsāra, the felling of the forest of becoming.
Śloka 49
निर्विकल्पा निराबाधा निर्भेदा भेदनाशिनी ।
निर्नाशा मृत्युमथनी निष्क्रिया निष्परिग्रहा ॥ ४९॥
nirvikalpā nirābādhā nirbhedā bheda-nāśinī |
nirnāśā mṛtyu-mathanī niṣkriyā niṣparigrahā ǁ 49 ǁ
176. निर्विकल्पा — Nirvikalpā
Translation: Without vikalpa — free of all conceptual division and alternative.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A summit-word of the contemplative path: nirvikalpa, free of constructs. The apavāda: vikalpa is the mind's splitting of the seamless into this-or-that, the conceptual overlay on the given; she is the constructless awareness prior to all such splitting — the ground that the deepest samādhi touches, where no concept divides the one into knower and known.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirvikalpā is the Absolute beyond all mental construction; the goal of nirvikalpa-samādhi is union with this constructless ground.
177. निराबाधा — Nirābādhā
Translation: Unobstructed and undisturbed, free of all affliction (ābādhā).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without ābādhā” — without hindrance or pain. The apavāda: nothing can obstruct or afflict that which is all-pervading and partless; obstruction requires a second thing to obstruct, and pain a vulnerable boundary — she has neither. The unobstructed is the ever-untroubled.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirābādhā is the unhindered, painless Absolute, beyond all that could afflict.
178. निर्भेदा — Nirbhedā
Translation: Without difference or division (bheda).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A great non-dual word: “without bheda.” The apavāda: bheda is difference — the three differences the tradition names (within a thing, between things of a kind, between kinds) are all denied of her. She is the one without internal, similar, or dissimilar difference: pure non-duality, the seamless reality in which no line is truly drawn.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirbhedā is the differenceless Absolute, the advaya beyond the three bhedas — the very heart of the non-dual.
179. भेदनाशिनी — Bheda-nāśinī
Translation: Who destroys the sense of division in her devotees.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The pair, and the most pointed of all: differenceless herself, she destroys the perception of difference in the seer. The apavāda made grace — she dissolves the seeing of two, the root of all bondage, granting the recognition that there was never a second. To destroy bheda is to end separation itself.
Śrī Vidyā: Bheda-nāśinī is the grace that abolishes the sense of separateness, the dawning of non-dual vision.
180. निर्नाशा — Nirnāśā
Translation: The indestructible, subject to no perishing (nāśa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without nāśa” — imperishable, echoing Nirupaplavā. The apavāda: what has no parts (Niṣkalā) and no birth (Nirbhavā) cannot perish; destruction belongs to the composite and the born. She is the deathless that remains when all that perishes has perished.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirnāśā is the imperishable ground, untouched by the destruction that ends all things.
181. मृत्युमथनी — Mṛtyu-mathanī
Translation: The conqueror (churner) of death.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Paired with the imperishable: being deathless, she churns death itself. The apavāda: she “conquers death” not by prolonging the body but by revealing the deathless that one already is — the fear of death, and death's hold, end with the recognition that the dying was only ever of the perishable adjunct, never of the Self. To know her is to be already beyond death's reach.
Śrī Vidyā: Mṛtyu-mathanī is the vanquisher of death, akin to Mṛtyuñjaya; her grace grants the deathlessness that is the Self's own.
182. निष्क्रिया — Niṣkriyā
Translation: The actionless, who does nothing (niṣkriya).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without kriyā” — without action. The apavāda: this is the great Vedāntic point — the Self is the actionless witness; all action belongs to the guṇas, to prakṛti, to the body-mind, never to the awareness that illumines them. She “does nothing” even as her powers do all — she fought the whole war by beholding. The doer is a superimposition; the Self acts not.
Śrī Vidyā: Niṣkriyā is the actionless witness-consciousness; the apparent activity of the world is the play of śakti upon the changeless ground.
183. निष्परिग्रहा — Niṣparigrahā
Translation: Without possessions, grasping and accepting nothing (parigraha).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without parigraha” — taking nothing, holding nothing. The apavāda: to accept or possess implies a need and an other to receive from; she who is all and lacks nothing receives nothing, holds nothing as external acquisition. The full has no hands for grasping — the complement of Nirmamā: not only is nothing “mine,” nothing is even taken.
Śrī Vidyā: Niṣparigrahā is the Absolute that needs and accepts nothing; the renunciate ideal grounded in the all-sufficiency of the Self.
Śloka 50
निस्तुला नीलचिकुरा निरपाया निरत्यया ।
दुर्लभा दुर्गमा दुर्गा दुःखहन्त्री सुखप्रदा ॥ ५०॥
nistulā nīla-cikurā nirapāyā niratyayā |
durlabhā durgamā durgā duḥkha-hantrī sukha-pradā ǁ 50 ǁ
The long exhalation of negation now resolves and turns. Nistulā — “incomparable” — is itself a kind of last negation, denying that anything can stand beside her; but with Nīla-cikurā, “dark-haired,” a concrete feature suddenly returns, as if, the attributes all stripped, the gracious form is gently allowed back. The verse closes with the dur- names — hard to attain, hard to reach, the inaccessible Durgā — and then, in two words, the whole purpose of the stripping: Duḥkha-hantrī, Sukha-pradā, she who destroys sorrow and gives joy. The negations were never bleak; they were the clearing-away of all that obscured the bliss, and here the bliss is named.
184. निस्तुला — Nistulā
Translation: The incomparable, to whom nothing can be likened (tulā = balance, comparison).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without a tulā” — without anything to weigh her against. The apavāda: comparison sets two side by side; she who is the One without a second cannot be compared, for there is no second to be the other term. Incomparability is non-duality stated as a denial of likeness — the chin “beyond comparison” of the early names, now the whole reality declared so.
Śrī Vidyā: Nistulā is the unequalled Absolute, beyond all comparison because beyond all duality.
185. नीलचिकुरा — Nīla-cikurā
Translation: She of the dark-blue (black, glossy) locks of hair.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: After the long stripping, a concrete feature returns: her dark, glossy hair. The apavāda is gentle now — having shown the form to be a gracious concession (Nirākārā), the hymn lets the loveliness back, not in forgetfulness but in freedom: the form, once known to be non-binding, can be enjoyed again without bondage. The dark hair is the night-sky beauty of the Mother, returned to the heart that has learned not to mistake it for the whole.
Śrī Vidyā: Nīla-cikurā evokes the blue-black, cloud-dark tresses of the Goddess; the cool, infinite dark of her hair is a meditative image of the boundless.
186. निरपाया — Nirapāyā
Translation: Without decay, loss, or downfall (apāya).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Without apāya” — never diminishing, never falling away. The apavāda: what is full and partless cannot wane; she is the fullness that suffers no loss, the constant that knows no decline. The nectar does not evaporate.
Śrī Vidyā: Nirapāyā is the undiminishing Absolute, free of all loss and downfall.
187. निरत्यया — Niratyayā
Translation: Beyond all passing-away, and beyond all transgression (atyaya).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Atyaya means both “perishing” and “transgression.” The apavāda: she is beyond passing — the imperishable again — and beyond transgression, for no law binds her that she could exceed; she is the ground of all order. Neither time nor rule has any “beyond” in which she could lapse.
Śrī Vidyā: Niratyayā is the imperishable and inviolable Absolute, beyond decline and beyond the breach of any limit.
188. दुर्लभा — Durlabhā
Translation: Hard to attain, rarely won.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Hard to obtain” — and the dur- names begin. The apavāda: she is hard to attain not because she is far but because she is too near, too simple, overlooked precisely for being the ever-present Self; what is nearest is hardest to “reach,” since there is no distance to cross and the mind, seeking elsewhere, misses it. The difficulty is the mind's, not hers.
Śrī Vidyā: Durlabhā is hard to attain — won, the tradition says, only by grace and after long ripening; the rarity is of the turning-within, not of her presence.
189. दुर्गमा — Durgamā
Translation: Hard to reach or approach, difficult of access.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: “Hard of approach.” The apavāda: as with Durlabhā, the inaccessibility is to the outward-going mind, for which the inmost is the most remote; she is unreachable by any path that leads away from the Self, and effortlessly present the instant the seeking turns home. The hard road is the only wrong one — outward.
Śrī Vidyā: Durgamā is difficult of access by ordinary means; the steep inner ascent, as of the kuṇḍalinī, reaches what no outer road can.
190. दुर्गा — Durgā
Translation: Durgā — the inaccessible fortress-goddess, remover of every difficulty.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The great name lands amid the dur- words: Durgā, “the inaccessible,” and the fort (durga) itself. The apavāda: she is the inaccessible — beyond the reach of the unaided mind — and at once the very stronghold of refuge, the fastness in which the Self is utterly safe; she is hard to cross, as a fort is, and herself the crossing by which all difficulty is crossed over. The inaccessible is the refuge.
Śrī Vidyā: Durgā is the supreme protective Goddess, the fortress and the ferry across difficulty; here Lalitā is identified with her, the inaccessible made the sure refuge.
191. दुःखहन्त्री — Duḥkha-hantrī
Translation: The destroyer of sorrow (duḥkha).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Now the purpose of all the stripping is named: she destroys sorrow. The apavāda: duḥkha is the suffering of the limited self, rooted in lack, fear, and the sense of separateness — every one of which the long negation has dissolved. She “destroys sorrow” not by consoling the separate self but by undoing the separateness that was sorrow's whole ground. With the cause removed, the suffering has nowhere to stand.
Śrī Vidyā: Duḥkha-hantrī is the remover of all sorrow; the negations culminate in her as the end of suffering.
192. सुखप्रदा — Sukha-pradā
Translation: The bestower of happiness and bliss (sukha).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: And the cascade resolves in joy: she gives sukha. The apavāda completes its arc — the joy she gives is not a pleasure added to a life but the native bliss (ānanda) of the Self, uncovered the moment sorrow's ground is gone. The whole long negation was for this: not to leave a barren void, but to clear away everything that hid the bliss the Self already is. She “gives joy” by giving the Self to itself.
Śrī Vidyā: Sukha-pradā is the bestower of supreme felicity; the privative cascade ends, fittingly, in the ānanda that is the Self's own nature.
Devanagari per the sanskritdocuments.org recension (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, Uttarakhaṇḍa; Hayagrīva–Agastya saṃvāda). Transliteration, translation, and commentary original to this edition. — End of Part VII.
