Part IX — Nāmas 235–274 (Ślokas 58–64): The Retinue, the Four States, and the Five Cosmic Acts
ॐ श्रीमात्रे नमः · oṃ śrīmātre namaḥ
Being, the states, and the acts
Part IX moves from the supreme name into the supreme teaching. It opens with the retinue and worship of the Goddess — the sixty-four modes of service, the sixty-four arts, the sixty-four crore yoginīs — and her forms and lineages: the vidyās, the moon-orb, the lovely crescent-bearing form, Pārvatī, the world-mother enthroned in the Śrī Cakra. Then it reaches the philosophical heart of the whole hymn. Seated upon the five-fold seat whose supports are the great gods themselves, she is named as sat-cit-ānanda — being, consciousness, bliss; then laid across the four states of the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad — waking, dream, deep sleep, and the witnessing Fourth, and beyond even that, free of all states; and finally named as the doer of the five cosmic acts — creation, preservation, dissolution, concealment, and grace. Here the Vedānta and the Śrī Vidyā are not two teachings but one: the Goddess is the Self the Upaniṣad analyses, and the five acts are her single, attribute-less play.
॥ श्रीललितासहस्रनामस्तोत्रम् ॥
The Thousand Names — Ślokas 58–64 (Nāmas 235–274)
Śloka 58
चतुःषष्ट्युपचाराढ्या चतुःषष्टिकलामयी ।
महाचतुःषष्टिकोटि-योगिनीगणसेविता ॥ ५८॥
catuḥṣaṣṭy-upacārāḍhyā catuḥṣaṣṭi-kalāmayī |
mahā-catuḥṣaṣṭi-koṭi-yoginī-gaṇa-sevitā ǁ 58 ǁ
235. चतुःषष्ट्युपचाराढ्या — Catuḥṣaṣṭy-upacārāḍhyā
Translation: Endowed with the sixty-four upacāras (modes of ritual service and honour).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is honoured with the sixty-four upacāras — the full ceremonial of attendance offered to a sovereign deity. The apavāda: every upacāra — the seat, the bath, the perfume, the lamp — is at root an act of attention turned toward her; the sixty-four are the many gestures of a single devotion, and what they finally offer is not the substances but the worshipper's own awareness, returned to its source. The richest worship is attention wholly given.
Śrī Vidyā: The catuḥṣaṣṭi-upacāras are the sixty-four services of the elaborate Śrī Vidyā pūjā; she is “rich” in them as the deity for whom the full royal ceremonial is performed.
236. चतुःषष्टिकलामयी — Catuḥṣaṣṭi-kalāmayī
Translation: Composed of the sixty-four arts (kalās).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the sixty-four arts themselves — the whole range of human skill and culture. The apavāda: every art, every skill, is a refraction of the one creative intelligence that she is; “made of the sixty-four arts” says that wherever there is genuine making, knowing, or beauty, it is her power at play. The arts are her self-expression in the field of culture.
Śrī Vidyā: The catuḥṣaṣṭi-kalās are the sixty-four traditional arts and sciences; she is their substance, the source of all skill and learning.
237. महाचतुःषष्टिकोटियोगिनीगणसेविता — Mahā-catuḥṣaṣṭi-koṭi-yoginī-gaṇa-sevitā
Translation: Attended by the great throng of sixty-four crore yoginīs.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: An immense retinue: sixty-four crore yoginīs wait upon her. The apavāda: the yoginīs are her own powers, numberless, attending the centre; their uncountable multitude “serves” the one whose powers they are, as the rays serve the sun by being nothing other than its light. The infinite retinue is the One displaying its own energies about itself.
Śrī Vidyā: The sixty-four crore yoginīs are the vast hierarchy of attendant śaktis of the kaula tradition; she is their sovereign, served by the whole host of the energy-deities.
Śloka 59
मनुविद्या चन्द्रविद्या चन्द्रमण्डलमध्यगा ।
चारुरूपा चारुहासा चारुचन्द्रकलाधरा ॥ ५९॥
manu-vidyā candra-vidyā candra-maṇḍala-madhyagā |
cāru-rūpā cāru-hāsā cāru-candra-kalā-dharā ǁ 59 ǁ
238. मनुविद्या — Manu-vidyā
Translation: Manu-vidyā — the sacred knowledge (and mantra) associated with the seer Manu.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the vidyā associated with Manu — a form of the sacred knowledge. The apavāda: a vidyā is a knowing that liberates, and she is that knowing itself; named by its seers, the vidyā is one — the self-knowledge that frees — wearing the names of those through whom it was transmitted.
Śrī Vidyā: Manu-vidyā is a lineage of the Śrī Vidyā mantra associated with the sage Manu; she is that vidyā in its very being. The tradition counts twelve such ṛṣi-lineages, of which Manu and Candra are foremost.
239. चन्द्रविद्या — Candra-vidyā
Translation: Candra-vidyā — the sacred knowledge associated with Candra (the moon).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is also the Candra-vidyā, the lineage named for the moon. The apavāda: as with Manu-vidyā, the vidyā is one and she is it; the moon's name marks both a transmitter and the cool, nectarous quality of this knowing — wisdom as the soothing, illumining moonlight of awareness.
Śrī Vidyā: Candra-vidyā is the lunar recension of the Śrī Vidyā, associated with Candra among the twelve lineages; the moon-faced grace of the Mother is near in this name.
240. चन्द्रमण्डलमध्यगा — Candra-maṇḍala-madhyagā
Translation: Who abides in the centre of the lunar orb (candra-maṇḍala).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She dwells at the heart of the moon's disc. The apavāda: the moon's orb is the seat of nectar and of the cool mind made clear; to dwell at its centre is to be the still point of the luminous, nectar-shedding awareness — the bindu within the disc of the cleared, blissful consciousness. (Recall the autumn-moon face and the nectar-rain of the sahasrāra.)
Śrī Vidyā: Candra-maṇḍala-madhyagā is seated in the lunar circle — the candra-maṇḍala of the sahasrāra or of the meditative disc, the seat of amṛta.
241. चारुरूपा — Cāru-rūpā
Translation: Of beautiful, lovely form (cāru).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: After the orb of the moon, loveliness returns: she is “of charming form.” The apavāda is by now familiar and free — the form, known to be a gracious concession (Nirākārā), is enjoyed again as beauty; cāru-rūpā is awareness delighting in the loveliness it freely wears.
Śrī Vidyā: Cāru-rūpā is the Goddess of enchanting beauty; the saumya, graceful form contemplated in meditation.
242. चारुहासा — Cāru-hāsā
Translation: Of a charming smile (hāsa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her smile is lovely. The apavāda: the smile is the play of grace upon the face — the spontaneous, reasonless delight of the Self, breaking like light; “lovely-smiling” is the joy (ānanda) of awareness made visible as a gentle radiance. The smile asks nothing and means everything.
Śrī Vidyā: Cāru-hāsā wears the gracious smile of the Mother — the mandahāsa that reassures and blesses the devotee.
243. चारुचन्द्रकलाधरा — Cāru-candra-kalā-dharā
Translation: Who bears the beautiful crescent (candra-kalā) of the moon.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She wears the lovely crescent moon, as Śiva does. The apavāda: the crescent is a single kalā, a sliver of the moon, the nectar-digit worn at the brow; to “bear the crescent” is to carry, even in the manifest form, the sign of the deathless nectar and of the mind refined to its finest phase. She wears the moon as Śiva's consort wears his emblem — the two again declared one.
Śrī Vidyā: Cāru-candra-kalā-dharā bears the crescent at her brow, sharing Śiva's lunar emblem; the kalā is the amṛta-digit, mark of the immortal.
Śloka 60
चराचर-जगन्नाथा चक्रराज-निकेतना ।
पार्वती पद्मनयना पद्मराग-समप्रभा ॥ ६०॥
carācara-jagan-nāthā cakra-rāja-niketanā |
pārvatī padma-nayanā padma-rāga-sama-prabhā ǁ 60 ǁ
244. चराचरजगन्नाथा — Carācara-jagan-nāthā
Translation: The sovereign mistress (nāthā) of the whole world, moving and unmoving (carācara).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the Lady of all that moves and all that does not — the entire world, animate and inanimate. The apavāda: “mistress of the moving-and-unmoving” gathers the whole of existence under her, and since she is its sole ground (Sarva-mayī), her lordship is not rule over an other but the all-pervadingness of the One that is the world's very being. There is nothing, still or stirring, that is not she.
Śrī Vidyā: Carācara-jagan-nāthā is the supreme sovereign of the entire cosmos, the jagad-ambā who is mistress of all beings.
245. चक्रराजनिकेतना — Cakra-rāja-niketanā
Translation: Whose abode is the Cakra-rāja — the king of cakras, the Śrī Cakra.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her home is the Śrī Cakra, “the king of cakras.” The apavāda: the Cakra-rāja, as the earlier names showed, is her own body-as-cosmos, the geometric map of the whole manifest about its still centre; to “dwell” in it is to be its bindu, the point of awareness around which the entire diagram of the worlds is arrayed. Her dwelling is herself.
Śrī Vidyā: Cakra-rāja-niketanā resides in the Śrī Cakra, supreme among yantras; the Cakra is her palace and her body, the bindu her seat — the Cintāmaṇi dweller of the earlier names.
246. पार्वती — Pārvatī
Translation: Pārvatī — the daughter of the mountain (Himavat), consort of Śiva.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The familiar, beloved name: Pārvatī, the mountain's daughter. The apavāda: even the most personal, mythic name — the bride of Śiva, daughter of Himavat — is a name of the one Goddess; the apavāda does not deny the dear form but sees through it to the same reality named a thousand ways. Pārvatī, Lalitā, Tripurasundarī — one beauty under many names.
Śrī Vidyā: Pārvatī is the Purāṇic consort of Śiva, daughter of the mountain; here identified with Lalitā, affirming that the Devī of every tradition is one.
247. पद्मनयना — Padma-nayanā
Translation: Lotus-eyed (whose eyes are like lotuses).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Her eyes are lotuses. The apavāda: the lotus eye — wide, cool, opening to the light — is the gaze of grace; and as the lotus opens to the sun, her eyes are the awareness that opens to its own light. (The merciful glance that earlier brought forth Gaṇeśa and beheld the cosmos.) Beauty here is the openness of seeing itself.
Śrī Vidyā: Padma-nayanā has eyes like lotus-petals; the gracious, compassionate gaze of the Mother.
248. पद्मरागसमप्रभा — Padma-rāga-sama-prabhā
Translation: Whose radiance equals that of the ruby (padma-rāga, the lotus-coloured gem).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She shines like a ruby — the deep red gem. The apavāda: the ruby's red is the dawn-red (aruṇa) of the very first names; her radiance is the warm, living glow of consciousness, the rose-red luminosity the hymn began with, here gleaming as a jewel. The colour of her light is the colour of compassion-warmed awareness.
Śrī Vidyā: Padma-rāga-sama-prabhā glows like the ruby; the rosy-red effulgence of the dawn-coloured Devī (Aruṇā of the opening names).
Śloka 61
पञ्चप्रेतासनासीना पञ्चब्रह्म-स्वरूपिणी ।
चिन्मयी परमानन्दा विज्ञानघनरूपिणी ॥ ६१॥
pañca-pretāsanāsīnā pañca-brahma-svarūpiṇī |
cin-mayī paramānandā vijñāna-ghana-rūpiṇī ǁ 61 ǁ
After the names of form and lineage, the hymn touches its philosophical centre. Seated on the five-fold seat upheld by the great gods (the pañca-pretāsana), she is named, in three words, as the very nature of the Absolute as the Vedānta knows it: Cin-mayī, “made of consciousness”; Paramānandā, “supreme bliss”; and Vijñāna-ghana-rūpiṇī, “whose form is a solid mass of pure awareness.” This is sat-cit-ānanda — being, consciousness, bliss — not as three attributes she possesses but as the one reality she is. The seat beneath her is the cosmos and its gods; what sits upon it is undivided awareness-bliss itself.
249. पञ्चप्रेतासनासीना — Pañca-pretāsanāsīnā
Translation: Seated upon the seat whose five supports are the great gods — inert “corpses” without her.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A startling image: she sits on a couch whose supports are the great gods, called “corpses” (preta). The apavāda: the five cosmic powers — creator, preserver, destroyer, concealer, gracer — are corpses, inert, until she, the conscious power (cit-śakti), animates them; without her presence even the highest gods are lifeless forms. The image teaches that all the functioning of the cosmos borrows its life from the one awareness that sits upon and enlivens it. She is the consciousness that makes the very gods alive.
Śrī Vidyā: The pañca-preta-āsana is the seat at the bindu of the Śrī Cakra formed by the five Brahmās (Brahmā to Sadāśiva) as the supports of her couch; inert without Śakti, they are her “five corpses,” and she the life within them — a point Bhāskararāya dwells on as the supremacy of Śakti.
250. पञ्चब्रह्मस्वरूपिणी — Pañca-brahma-svarūpiṇī
Translation: Whose own form is the five Brahmās (the five cosmic functionaries).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: And at once: she is the five Brahmās themselves. The apavāda holds both together — they are her seat (inert) and her form (her own manifestation); the five powers are dead apart from her and are nothing but her when alive. To be “of the form of the five” is to be the single consciousness appearing as all five cosmic agents — the doctrine the coming ślokas will unfold as the five acts.
Śrī Vidyā: Pañca-brahma-svarūpiṇī is the five Brahmās as her own body; the five faces and functions are her manifestation, the one Śakti as the fivefold divine.
251. चिन्मयी — Cin-mayī
Translation: Cin-mayī — whose very being is consciousness (cit).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The first of the three supreme words: she is “made of cit,” pure consciousness. The apavāda reaches its positive height — having stripped every attribute, the hymn names what remains as consciousness itself: not a thing that is conscious, but consciousness as the sole substance. She is not aware; she is awareness. This is the cit of sat-cit-ānanda.
Śrī Vidyā: Cin-mayī is the Goddess as pure consciousness (cit-śakti); the awareness that is the very stuff of reality, the prakāśa at the heart of all.
252. परमानन्दा — Paramānandā
Translation: Paramānandā — the supreme bliss (ānanda).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The second word: she is supreme bliss. The apavāda: ānanda, as the Upaniṣads teach, is not a pleasure but the very nature of being — the fullness that, lacking nothing, is joy by its own constitution; she is supreme bliss as the Self's own self-delight, the ānanda that Sukha-pradā gave and Mahā-rati embodied, now named as her essence. This is the ānanda of sat-cit-ānanda.
Śrī Vidyā: Paramānandā is the supreme bliss-aspect of the Goddess; the ānanda that is the Self's nature and the goal of all seeking.
253. विज्ञानघनरूपिणी — Vijñāna-ghana-rūpiṇī
Translation: Whose form is a solid mass (ghana) of pure consciousness (vijñāna).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The third word gathers the other two: her form is a “dense mass of vijñāna” — consciousness packed solid, without gap or admixture, a single block of awareness. The apavāda: as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka says, the Self is “a single mass of consciousness” (prajñāna-ghana) — homogeneous, partless, without inside or outside; she is that undivided density of pure knowing. The three names together — Cin-mayī, Paramānandā, Vijñāna-ghana-rūpiṇī — are the hymn's own statement of sat-cit-ānanda: being-consciousness-bliss as the one she is.
Śrī Vidyā: Vijñāna-ghana-rūpiṇī is the Goddess as the undivided mass of consciousness; the prajñāna-ghana of the Upaniṣad, the homogeneous awareness that is the supreme reality.
Śloka 62
ध्यानध्यातृध्येयरूपा धर्माधर्म-विवर्जिता ।
विश्वरूपा जागरिणी स्वपन्ती तैजसात्मिका ॥ ६२॥
dhyāna-dhyātṛ-dhyeya-rūpā dharmādharma-vivarjitā |
viśva-rūpā jāgariṇī svapantī taijasātmikā ǁ 62 ǁ
Now the hymn lays the Goddess across the four states of consciousness as the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad maps them — for she is the Self the Upaniṣad analyses. First she is named the unity of the meditative triad (meditator, meditation, meditated) and the ground beyond the moral pairs; then, state by state: as Viśva-rūpā and Jāgariṇī she is the waking self (Vaiśvānara, experiencing the gross world); as Svapantī and Taijasātmikā she is the dreaming self (Taijasa, experiencing the subtle). The next śloka will name her the deep-sleep self (Suptā, Prājña), then Turyā, the “fourth” — and beyond even that, Sarvāvasthā-vivarjitā, free of all states. The teaching is exact: she is each state's experiencer, identical through all, and finally the witness free of them — which is the Self the seeker is.
254. ध्यानध्यातृध्येयरूपा — Dhyāna-dhyātṛ-dhyeya-rūpā
Translation: Whose form is the meditation, the meditator, and the object of meditation.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is all three terms of the act of meditation — the one who meditates, the meditating, and the meditated-upon. The apavāda: this is the collapse of the knower-knowing-known triad (the tripuṭī) into one — in the deepest contemplation the three are seen to be a single awareness, and she is that unity. Where the triad dissolves, she alone remains; the very structure of meditation, fully entered, reveals the non-dual. (And “Tripurā” is precisely she who is prior to such triads.)
Śrī Vidyā: Dhyāna-dhyātṛ-dhyeya-rūpā is the unity of the meditative triad; in the highest samādhi the tripuṭī merges, and she is the one consciousness the three always were.
255. धर्माधर्मविवर्जिता — Dharmādharma-vivarjitā
Translation: Devoid of both righteousness and unrighteousness (dharma and adharma).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is beyond dharma and adharma alike. The apavāda: merit and demerit are the pair that binds the doer to the wheel of becoming; she, the actionless witness (Niṣkriyā), stands beyond both — not lawless, but the ground prior to the very polarity of good-deed and ill-deed, in which the doer who reaps them is seen to be unreal. Beyond virtue and vice lies the Self that neither acts nor accrues.
Śrī Vidyā: Dharmādharma-vivarjitā transcends the dyad of karmic merit and demerit; the supreme reality untouched by the moral law that governs the bound.
256. विश्वरूपा — Viśva-rūpā
Translation: Viśva-rūpā — whose form is the universe; the waking-state self (Vaiśvānara).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the all-form — the entire cosmos as her body — and so, in the Māṇḍūkya reading, the waking self, Vaiśvānara, who experiences the gross world. The apavāda: to be “of the form of the universe” is to be the one experiencer in all waking experience, the awareness that, appearing as Virāṭ, knows the gross world as itself; the cosmos is her waking experience of the real, and she its single seer.
Śrī Vidyā: Viśva-rūpā is the cosmic form (Virāṭ / Vaiśvānara), the first of the four pādas of the Self in the Māṇḍūkya — the Goddess as all-pervading waking consciousness.
257. जागरिणी — Jāgariṇī
Translation: Jāgariṇī — she who presides over the waking state (jāgrat).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the waker — consciousness in the waking state. The apavāda: she “wakes” as the one awareness underlying every waking experience; the waking state is hers, yet she is not bound by it, being equally the dream and the sleep that follow. The waker is the Self appearing under the condition of waking.
Śrī Vidyā: Jāgariṇī is the presiding consciousness of jāgrat; with Viśva-rūpā she is the first pāda, Vaiśvānara.
258. स्वपन्ती — Svapantī
Translation: Svapantī — she who dreams; consciousness in the dream state (svapna).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the dreamer — awareness turned inward, experiencing the subtle, self-projected world of dream. The apavāda: dream reveals consciousness as the maker of its own worlds, projecting and witnessing them by its own light; she is “the dreaming one” as the awareness that, in dream, shows plainly what it does subtly even in waking — illumines a world spun of itself. The dreamer is the Self under the condition of dream.
Śrī Vidyā: Svapantī is the consciousness of svapna; the inward, luminous self that experiences the subtle.
259. तैजसात्मिका — Taijasātmikā
Translation: Whose self is Taijasa — the luminous dream-experiencer.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the very self of Taijasa, the “shining one,” the experiencer in dream. The apavāda: Taijasa is so called because in dream consciousness experiences by its own light alone, without the outer sun; she is “of the nature of Taijasa” as that self-luminous awareness which needs no second light to know — the inner light by which even the dark of dream is seen. With Svapantī, the second pāda.
Śrī Vidyā: Taijasātmikā is the Taijasa-self, the second pāda of the Māṇḍūkya — the luminous experiencer of the subtle, dream world.
Śloka 63
सुप्ता प्राज्ञात्मिका तुर्या सर्वावस्था-विवर्जिता ।
सृष्टिकर्त्री ब्रह्मरूपा गोप्त्री गोविन्दरूपिणी ॥ ६३॥
suptā prājñātmikā turyā sarvāvasthā-vivarjitā |
sṛṣṭi-kartrī brahma-rūpā goptrī govinda-rūpiṇī ǁ 63 ǁ
260. सुप्ता — Suptā
Translation: Suptā — she who is in deep sleep (suṣupti); the deep-sleep state.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the sleeper — consciousness in dreamless sleep, where all objects subside into an undifferentiated peace. The apavāda: deep sleep is the nearest the ordinary mind comes to the formless — all distinctions dissolved, only a blissful, unknowing rest remaining; she is “the sleeping one” as the awareness present even there, in which the world is withdrawn yet consciousness is not extinguished — the seed of all, held unmanifest.
Śrī Vidyā: Suptā is the consciousness of suṣupti, deep sleep; the state of undifferentiated rest in which the manifold is reabsorbed.
261. प्राज्ञात्मिका — Prājñātmikā
Translation: Whose self is Prājña — the experiencer of deep sleep, the seed-knower.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the self of Prājña, the “knower” of the seed-state. The apavāda: in deep sleep consciousness rests as the undivided cause, the seed in which all worlds lie folded, knowing nothing in particular yet not absent — Prājña, the simple knower of bliss-and-ignorance; she is that causal self, the unmanifest fullness from which waking and dream issue again. With Suptā, the third pāda — yet, as the next name insists, she is not finally limited even to this.
Śrī Vidyā: Prājñātmikā is the Prājña-self, the third pāda, the causal consciousness of deep sleep; the seed-state (kāraṇa) of the cosmos.
262. तुर्या — Turyā
Translation: Turyā — the Fourth (turīya), the pure witness beyond the three states.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The crowning state-name: she is the Fourth, turīya. The apavāda: beyond waking, dream, and sleep — not a fourth state alongside them but the awareness that underlies and witnesses all three, present in each yet conditioned by none. She is “the Fourth” as the continuous consciousness in which the three states rise and set, the Self that says “I slept, I dreamt, I woke” and so was awake through all. This is the turīya the whole hymn has pointed to — the “Tripurā” prior to the three.
Śrī Vidyā: Turyā is the turīya, the fourth, the witness-consciousness of the Māṇḍūkya that pervades and transcends the three states; the supreme Self, here the very Goddess.
263. सर्वावस्थाविवर्जिता — Sarvāvasthā-vivarjitā
Translation: Sarvāvasthā-vivarjitā — devoid of all states whatever.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: And beyond even the Fourth: she is “free of all states.” The apavāda makes the final move — lest turīya itself be taken as one more state to occupy, this name strips that too: she is in no state, not even the fourth, for she is utterly stateless, the absolute (sometimes called turīyātīta, “beyond the fourth”). Awareness is not a condition among conditions; it is the conditionless in which the very idea of “state” arises. The map of the four states is itself transcended.
Śrī Vidyā: Sarvāvasthā-vivarjitā is beyond all the avasthās, the turīyātīta; the absolute that no state can contain, the ground of the entire fourfold scheme.
264. सृष्टिकर्त्री — Sṛṣṭi-kartrī
Translation: Sṛṣṭi-kartrī — the doer of creation; she who creates the worlds.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Now the five cosmic acts begin: first, she is the creatrix. The apavāda: “creation” is the projection of the manifold (the adhyāropa on the cosmic scale), and she is its agent — yet, being the actionless witness (Niṣkriyā), she “creates” not by labour but as the screen on which the world appears, the rope from which the snake is projected; the creating is real as appearance, her changelessness untouched. She is creatrix as the ground from which, by its mere presence, the world springs.
Śrī Vidyā: Sṛṣṭi-kartrī is the Goddess as creator, the first of the five functions (pañca-kṛtya); she performs sṛṣṭi through Brahmā, her instrument.
265. ब्रह्मरूपा — Brahma-rūpā
Translation: Brahma-rūpā — who takes the form of Brahmā (the creator-god).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the creator-god Brahmā himself. The apavāda: the function and its functionary are one in her — she does not employ a separate Brahmā but is Brahmā, the creating appearing as a creator; the god of creation is her own form assumed for the cosmic act. (Pair: Sṛṣṭi-kartrī / Brahma-rūpā — the act and its agent, both hers.)
Śrī Vidyā: Brahma-rūpā is the Goddess as Brahmā, the creative functionary; the first of the five Brahmās of the pañca-preta seat, here animate as her form.
266. गोप्त्री — Goptrī
Translation: Goptrī — the preserver, who guards and sustains the worlds.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The second act: she preserves. The apavāda: preservation is the sustaining of the appearance for its term — the maintaining of the projected world in being; she “protects” as the continuing ground without which nothing could persist for an instant. Existence endures only by leaning, moment to moment, on the being that she is.
Śrī Vidyā: Goptrī is the Goddess as preserver, the second function; she sustains through Viṣṇu, guardian of the worlds.
267. गोविन्दरूपिणी — Govinda-rūpiṇī
Translation: Govinda-rūpiṇī — who takes the form of Govinda (Viṣṇu, the preserver).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Viṣṇu the preserver himself. The apavāda: again function and functionary are one — the preserving appears as a preserver, Govinda, who is her own form; the great sustainer of the Vaiṣṇava world is, from her side, a face she wears for the act of sustaining. (Pair: Goptrī / Govinda-rūpiṇī.)
Śrī Vidyā: Govinda-rūpiṇī is the Goddess as Viṣṇu, the preserving functionary; the second of the five Brahmās as her form.
Śloka 64
संहारिणी रुद्ररूपा तिरोधानकरीश्वरी ।
सदाशिवानुग्रहदा पञ्चकृत्यपरायणा ॥ ६४॥
saṃhāriṇī rudra-rūpā tirodhāna-karī-īśvarī |
sadāśivā-anugraha-dā pañca-kṛtya-parāyaṇā ǁ 64 ǁ
This śloka completes the pañca-kṛtya, the five cosmic acts, mapping each to one of the five Brahmās who form her seat: creation (Sṛṣṭi-kartrī / Brahma-rūpā) and preservation (Goptrī / Govinda-rūpiṇī) were just named; here come dissolution (Saṃhāriṇī / Rudra-rūpā), concealment (Tirodhāna-karī / Īśvarī), and grace (Sadāśivā / Anugraha-dā) — and all five are gathered into the final name, Pañca-kṛtya-parāyaṇā, “devoted to the five acts.” The fourth and fifth acts are the inner ones: tirodhāna, the veiling by which the One hides itself in the many (the cosmic adhyāropa), and anugraha, the grace by which it reveals itself again (the apavāda). The whole drama of bondage and liberation is here named as two of her own five functions — she conceals herself, and she graces.
268. संहारिणी — Saṃhāriṇī
Translation: Saṃhāriṇī — she who withdraws and dissolves the worlds.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The third act: dissolution. The apavāda: saṃhāra is the drawing-back of the manifold into its source (the cosmic apavāda), the un-projecting of the world; she “destroys” as the ground into which all returns, as rope-knowledge ends the snake. Dissolution is not annihilation but reabsorption — the appearance withdrawn, the reality undiminished.
Śrī Vidyā: Saṃhāriṇī is the Goddess as dissolver, the third function; she withdraws the cosmos through Rudra.
269. रुद्ररूपा — Rudra-rūpā
Translation: Rudra-rūpā — who takes the form of Rudra (the dissolver-god).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Rudra the destroyer himself. The apavāda: the dissolving appears as a dissolver, Rudra, her own form for the act of withdrawal; the fierce god of dissolution is a face of the same gentle ground. (Pair: Saṃhāriṇī / Rudra-rūpā.)
Śrī Vidyā: Rudra-rūpā is the Goddess as Rudra, the dissolving functionary; the third of the five Brahmās as her form.
270. तिरोधानकरी — Tirodhāna-karī
Translation: Tirodhāna-karī — she who performs concealment (the veiling of the real).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The fourth act, and an inward one: concealment. The apavāda: tirodhāna is the veiling by which the One hides its own infinitude and appears as the bound and the limited — the very māyā-power (she is Mahā-māyā) that throws the covering (āvaraṇa) over the Self, so that the world of separateness can seem real. This is the cosmic adhyāropa named as her deliberate act: she conceals herself, that the play may unfold. The hiding is hers, and so, therefore, is the finding.
Śrī Vidyā: Tirodhāna-karī is the Goddess as the power of concealment (tirodhāna / nigraha), the fourth function; the veiling śakti that obscures the true nature, setting the stage for grace.
271. ईश्वरी — Īśvarī
Translation: Īśvarī — the sovereign, here the divine functionary of concealment.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Īśvarī — the Lord — named as the agent of the fourth act. The apavāda: in the fivefold scheme the concealing is assigned to Īśvara, and she is that Īśvarī; yet, as Nirīśvarā taught, her lordship is not over an other — even the act of concealment is the One's own self-veiling, sovereign and free. The Lord who hides the Self is the Self. (Pair: Tirodhāna-karī / Īśvarī.)
Śrī Vidyā: Īśvarī is the Goddess as Īśvara, the functionary of concealment; the fourth of the five Brahmās as her form.
272. सदाशिवा — Sadāśivā
Translation: Sadāśivā — the eternally auspicious, the divine functionary of grace.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Sadāśivā — “ever-Śiva,” ever-auspicious — named as the agent of the fifth act. The apavāda: the fifth function, anugraha (grace), is assigned to Sadāśiva, the highest of the five, ever turned toward benediction; she is that ever-gracious power, eternally inclined to reveal what concealment had hidden. Where tirodhāna veils, Sadāśivā unveils — and being “ever” auspicious, the bias of the whole play is, in the end, toward grace.
Śrī Vidyā: Sadāśivā is the Goddess as Sadāśiva, the functionary of grace; the fifth and highest of the five Brahmās, the gracious one at the crown of the seat.
273. अनुग्रहदा — Anugraha-dā
Translation: Anugraha-dā — she who grants grace (anugraha), the act of revealing.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The fifth act named directly: she gives grace. The apavāda: anugraha is the lifting of the veil — the self-revelation by which the concealed Self is recognised again (the cosmic apavāda); it is the inmost of her acts, the one toward which the other four bend. She “gives grace” by un-hiding what she had hidden, so that the long play of becoming comes home. (Pair: Sadāśivā / Anugraha-dā — grace's agent and grace's gift.)
Śrī Vidyā: Anugraha-dā is the Goddess as the bestower of grace, the fifth function (anugraha); the revealing śakti that grants liberation, counterpart of tirodhāna.
274. पञ्चकृत्यपरायणा — Pañca-kṛtya-parāyaṇā
Translation: Wholly devoted to the five cosmic acts (creation, preservation, dissolution, concealment, grace).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The cadence gathers all five: she is “intent upon the five acts” — creation, preservation, dissolution, concealment, and grace, the complete cycle of the cosmic play. The apavāda: the five together are the whole of what seems to happen — the world projected, sustained, withdrawn, the Self hidden and revealed — and all five are her sole activity, performed by the actionless witness as effortlessly as the sun “performs” the day. To name her “devoted to the five acts” is to say that all that ever occurs, in all the worlds and in every awakening, is her single, ceaseless, attribute-less play. The cosmos and liberation alike are her pañca-kṛtya.
Śrī Vidyā: Pañca-kṛtya-parāyaṇā is the Goddess ever engaged in the five functions — sṛṣṭi, sthiti, saṃhāra, tirodhāna, anugraha — performed through the five Brahmās; the complete divine activity, which Bhāskararāya treats as the very definition of the supreme Śakti's lordship.
Devanagari per the sanskritdocuments.org recension (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, Uttarakhaṇḍa; Hayagrīva–Agastya saṃvāda). Transliteration, translation, and commentary original to this edition. — End of Part IX.
