Śrī Lalitā Sahasranāma — Article 6 of 20
Her Cosmic Body — the Universe as the Mother
Nāmas 249–297 · Ślokas 61–69
ॐ श्रीमात्रे नमः · oṃ śrīmātre namaḥ
Her court, and her cosmic body. The worlds are shown to be her limbs, and the whole universe her visible form. The universe is not outside God; it is God made visible.
Part IX — Nāmas 235–274 (Ślokas 58–64): The Retinue, the Four States, and the Five Cosmic Acts
In simple words. Her court and her work. We meet her attendants; the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep; and her five cosmic acts — creating, sustaining, dissolving, concealing, and blessing. Every moment of our experience is her activity.
(Part IX began in Article 5; the names below continue it.)
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.
Part X — Nāmas 275–304 (Ślokas 65–70): The Cosmic Body, the Mother of All, and the Sound Beyond Name
In simple words. Her body is the cosmos. The worlds are her limbs. She is the Mother of all, and the sound behind every name. The universe is not outside God; it is God's own visible form.
Śloka 65
भानुमण्डलमध्यस्था भैरवी भगमालिनी ।
पद्मासना भगवती पद्मनाभसहोदरी ॥ ६५॥
bhānu-maṇḍala-madhyasthā bhairavī bhagamālinī |
padmāsanā bhagavatī padmanābha-sahodarī ǁ 65 ǁ
275. भानुमण्डलमध्यस्था — Bhānu-maṇḍala-madhyasthā
Translation: Who abides at the centre of the solar orb (bhānu-maṇḍala).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: As she dwelt in the moon's orb, she dwells now at the centre of the sun's. The apavāda: sun and moon are the two great lights — the moon the cool nectar of the cleared mind, the sun the blazing light of pure knowing; to be the centre of the solar disc is to be the still point of the light of consciousness itself, the source from which all illumination radiates. She is the light within the light. (In the inner astronomy the sun and moon are piṅgalā and iḍā; she is the central suṣumṇā between them.)
Śrī Vidyā: Bhānu-maṇḍala-madhyasthā is seated in the solar circle — the sūrya-maṇḍala of the meditative body, the seat of the inner sun; with the lunar seat just named, she is the centre of both luminaries.
276. भैरवी — Bhairavī
Translation: Bhairavī — the consort of Bhairava; the supreme Śakti of the Bhairava-tantras.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Bhairavī — the power of the fearsome Bhairava. The apavāda: the “terror” of Bhairava is the dissolving fire before which the limited self trembles; Bhairavī is that very power — fearsome only to the ego, utter refuge to the one who lets the ego go. (Bhayāpahā, the remover of fear, and Bhairavī, the fierce, are one: she frightens away nothing but the unreal.)
Śrī Vidyā: Bhairavī is the supreme Śakti of the Bhairava-tantras, one of the Mahāvidyās; the fierce, sovereign form of the Goddess.
277. भगमालिनी — Bhagamālinī
Translation: Bhagamālinī — garlanded with bhaga (the six divine glories), and a Nityā-Śakti.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She wears the garland of bhaga — the sixfold glory (sovereignty, might, fame, beauty, knowledge, dispassion). The apavāda: bhaga is the fullness of divine excellence, and to be “garlanded with bhaga” is to wear the perfections as ornaments, not to acquire them — they are the natural radiance of the Self, strung as a garland about the one who is their source.
Śrī Vidyā: Bhagamālinī is the second Nityā-devatā of the Śrī Vidyā (after Kāmeśvarī) and the bearer of the garland of the six bhagas; the glories that make the bhagavatī.
278. पद्मासना — Padmāsanā
Translation: Seated upon the lotus (padma).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She sits on the lotus throne. The apavāda: the lotus, rooted in mud yet unstained and open to the light, is the image of the manifest opened toward the transcendent; to be “lotus-seated” is to be enthroned upon the purest unfolding of creation — the seat that, like the seer, is in the world and untouched by it.
Śrī Vidyā: Padmāsanā is enthroned on the lotus, as Brahmā and Lakṣmī are; the padma is the unfolded cosmos and the pure support of the deity.
279. भगवती — Bhagavatī
Translation: Bhagavatī — the divine Lady, possessor of all bhaga (glory).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is Bhagavatī — the feminine of Bhagavān, the one who possesses bhaga in full. The apavāda: the title names the totality of the six glories as hers — yet, as Nirguṇā, she is also beyond even these; “Bhagavatī” is the supreme reality named in its aspect of all-glorious fullness, the saguṇa face of the attributeless.
Śrī Vidyā: Bhagavatī is the supreme divine Lady, full of the six bhagas; the standard exalted title of the Goddess.
280. पद्मनाभसहोदरी — Padmanābha-sahodarī
Translation: The sister (sahodarī) of Padmanābha (Viṣṇu, the lotus-naveled).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the sister of Viṣṇu, from whose navel-lotus the worlds arise. The apavāda: the kinship-name binds the Goddess to the preserver as his very sister — and in the lore the Devī is Viṣṇu's sister; the apavāda hears in it the non-difference of the powers, the great deities so intimate they are siblings, branches of the one. (Viṣṇu preserves; she is Goptrī — kin in function as in essence.)
Śrī Vidyā: Padmanābha-sahodarī is the sister of Viṣṇu — affirming the unity of the Śaiva-Śākta and Vaiṣṇava streams, the Goddess as Viṣṇu's own kin.
Śloka 66
उन्मेषनिमिषोत्पन्न-विपन्नभुवनावलिः ।
सहस्रशीर्षवदना सहस्राक्षी सहस्रपात् ॥ ६६॥
unmeṣa-nimiṣotpanna-vipanna-bhuvanāvaliḥ |
sahasra-śīrṣa-vadanā sahasrākṣī sahasrapāt ǁ 66 ǁ
Here the hymn opens onto the cosmic form. With a single image it states the whole relation of the world to the Self: the entire array of worlds arises and perishes with the opening and closing of her eyes (unmeṣa-nimiṣa) — the universe is the blink of awareness, present while she “looks,” withdrawn when she “closes,” never more substantial than that. And then, in the very words of the Puruṣa-sūkta, she is named thousand-headed, thousand-eyed, thousand-footed: the cosmic Puruṣa is herself, every head and eye and foot in all the worlds her own. The world is her glance; the body of the world is her body.
281. उन्मेषनिमिषोत्पन्नविपन्नभुवनावलिः — Unmeṣa-nimiṣotpanna-vipanna-bhuvanāvaliḥ
Translation: With the mere opening (unmeṣa) and closing (nimiṣa) of whose eyes the ranks of worlds (bhuvanāvali) come into being and pass away.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The great cosmological image: when she opens her eyes, the worlds spring up; when she closes them, the worlds dissolve. The apavāda: the entire universe is no more than the play of her glance — projected in the opening, withdrawn in the closing, having exactly the reality of what is present only while looked at. Creation and dissolution are reduced to a blink; the worlds are her seeing, and her seeing is herself. There is nothing the world is, apart from her momentary regard — the cosmic adhyāropa and apavāda in the flutter of an eyelid.
Śrī Vidyā: This celebrated name makes the cosmos the rhythm of the Goddess's blinking; sṛṣṭi and saṃhāra are her unmeṣa and nimiṣa — the pulse (spanda) of consciousness opening and closing, worlds upon worlds.
282. सहस्रशीर्षवदना — Sahasra-śīrṣa-vadanā
Translation: Of a thousand heads and faces (sahasra-śīrṣa, sahasra-vadana).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: In the words of the Puruṣa-sūkta, she is thousand-headed. The apavāda: “a thousand” means numberless — every head in all the worlds is hers; the cosmic person (Puruṣa) whom the Veda hymns is the Goddess, the single awareness wearing every face. To be thousand-headed is to be the one looking out through all heads. (As the Gītā's viśva-rūpa, now in the feminine.)
Śrī Vidyā: Sahasra-śīrṣa-vadanā is the cosmic form of the Puruṣa-sūkta (“sahasra-śīrṣā puruṣaḥ”) in feminine guise; the Devī as the all-formed cosmic person.
283. सहस्राक्षी — Sahasrākṣī
Translation: Thousand-eyed (sahasra-akṣī).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Thousand-eyed — numberless eyes. The apavāda: she is the single seeing in every eye that sees; “thousand-eyed” is the one witness looking out through all the eyes in all the worlds, the seer that is never multiplied though the eyes are countless. (Recall the merciful glance, the lotus eyes — now the cosmic eye, everywhere.)
Śrī Vidyā: Sahasrākṣī continues the Puruṣa-sūkta image; the all-seeing cosmic form, every eye in creation her own.
284. सहस्रपात् — Sahasrapāt
Translation: Thousand-footed (sahasra-pād).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Thousand-footed — the cosmic form complete, by which she pervades and “stands upon” all. The apavāda: as the Puruṣa covered the earth on all sides and yet stood beyond it, her thousand feet are her presence everywhere supporting all — the one ground standing in every standing thing, while exceeding the whole. The cosmic body is named entire: heads, eyes, feet — she is the all-pervading Puruṣa, the world her own form.
Śrī Vidyā: Sahasrapāt completes the Puruṣa-sūkta triad; the Devī as the cosmic person who pervades and transcends the worlds.
Śloka 67
आब्रह्मकीटजननी वर्णाश्रमविधायिनी ।
निजाज्ञारूपनिगमा पुण्यापुण्यफलप्रदा ॥ ६७॥
ābrahma-kīṭa-jananī varṇāśrama-vidhāyinī |
nijājñā-rūpa-nigamā puṇyāpuṇya-phala-pradā ǁ 67 ǁ
285. आब्रह्मकीटजननी — Ābrahma-kīṭa-jananī
Translation: The mother (jananī) of all beings, from Brahmā down to the worm (kīṭa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the mother of everything that lives — from the creator-god at the summit to the smallest insect. The apavāda: “from Brahmā to the worm” spans the whole hierarchy of beings, and she is the single source of all — and since she is their substance (Sarva-mayī), the highest and the lowest are equally her own, equally near; the worm is no farther from the Mother than Brahmā. Motherhood here is the non-dual: all beings are not made by her but born of her, of her own being.
Śrī Vidyā: Ābrahma-kīṭa-jananī is the universal Mother of every creature from the demiurge to the insect; the jagad-ambā who bears all beings.
286. वर्णाश्रमविधायिनी — Varṇāśrama-vidhāyinī
Translation: Who ordains the order of varṇas (classes) and āśramas (stages of life).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She lays down the social-spiritual order, the dharma of varṇa and āśrama. The apavāda: the ordered world of duty is her arrangement, the framework within which beings ripen — yet she who ordains it is herself beyond it (Dharmādharma-vivarjitā); she sets the law for the bound while remaining the free ground prior to all law. The order is real for the journey, and transcended at its end.
Śrī Vidyā: Varṇāśrama-vidhāyinī establishes the dharmic order of society and the life-stages; the upholder of ṛta and dharma in the world.
287. निजाज्ञारूपनिगमा — Nijājñā-rūpa-nigamā
Translation: Whose very command (ājñā) takes form as the Veda (nigama, scripture).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The Veda itself is her command made into words. The apavāda: scripture is “her own ājñā in the form of the nigama” — the eternal sound-of-truth is her will, and the Veda is not a book about her but the very utterance of her command. Yet, being her command, it is subordinate to her — a pointer issuing from the reality it points to; the Veda has authority because it is her word, and its authority is fulfilled when it brings the seeker to her. (The next name shows even the Veda as the dust on her feet.)
Śrī Vidyā: Nijājñā-rūpa-nigamā is she whose command is the Veda; the śruti is her ordinance, the apauruṣeya word that is her own will.
288. पुण्यापुण्यफलप्रदा — Puṇyāpuṇya-phala-pradā
Translation: The giver of the fruits of merit (puṇya) and demerit (apuṇya).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She dispenses the fruits of good and ill deeds — the just order of karma. The apavāda: the moral economy by which deeds bear fruit is her dispensation — yet she who awards the fruits is herself beyond merit and demerit (Dharmādharma-vivarjitā), the impartial ground in which the whole law of consequence operates. She gives the fruits to the doers; to the one who knows her, the doership itself dissolves, and with it the fruits. The law binds the doer; she frees the knower.
Śrī Vidyā: Puṇyāpuṇya-phala-pradā is the dispenser of karmic fruit, the just power behind the moral law; she who, transcending it, can also remit it by grace.
Śloka 68
श्रुतिसीमन्तसिन्दूरीकृतपादाब्जधूलिका ।
सकलागमसन्दोह-शुक्तिसम्पुटमौक्तिका ॥ ६८॥
śruti-sīmanta-sindūrī-kṛta-pādābja-dhūlikā |
sakalāgama-sandoha-śukti-sampuṭa-mauktikā ǁ 68 ǁ
289. श्रुतिसीमन्तसिन्दूरीकृतपादाब्जधूलिका — Śruti-sīmanta-sindūrī-kṛta-pādābja-dhūlikā
Translation: The dust of whose lotus-feet becomes the vermilion in the parting of the hair of the Vedas (imagined as wedded women bowing at her feet).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: An exquisite image: the Vedas are figured as her wedded handmaids, and the dust of her feet, as they bow, settles in the partings of their hair like the red sindūra of the married. The apavāda: even the Vedas — the highest authority, the very sound of truth — are her devotees, bowing so low that her foot-dust adorns them; scripture itself reveres her. The teaching is the Veda's own subordination: the śruti is supreme among words, and she is the reality the supreme words bow to — the dust of her feet more exalted than the crown of the Vedas. Knowledge bows to the Self that knowledge is for.
Śrī Vidyā: Śruti-sīmanta-sindūrī-kṛta-pādābja-dhūlikā depicts the Vedas as married women whose hair-partings are reddened by the dust of the Mother's feet; the supremacy of the Goddess over even the śruti, a celebrated image of the hymn.
290. सकलागमसन्दोहशुक्तिसम्पुटमौक्तिका — Sakalāgama-sandoha-śukti-sampuṭa-mauktikā
Translation: The pearl (mauktika) enclosed within the oyster-shell (śukti-sampuṭa) formed by the totality of all the scriptures (āgamas).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: Another jewel-image: all the scriptures together are an oyster-shell, and she is the single pearl within. The apavāda: the vast body of revealed texts — all the āgamas, with their countless words — exist to enclose and yield one thing, as the shell exists for the pearl; she is that pearl, the single reality all scripture is “about,” for whose sake the whole shell of words is grown. Open all the scriptures and you find her; she is their one content. The many words, the one meaning.
Śrī Vidyā: Sakalāgama-sandoha-śukti-sampuṭa-mauktikā is the pearl within the shell of all the āgamas; the essence and sole purport of the entire revealed corpus.
Śloka 69
पुरुषार्थप्रदा पूर्णा भोगिनी भुवनेश्वरी ।
अम्बिकानादिनिधना हरिब्रह्मेन्द्रसेविता ॥ ६९॥
puruṣārtha-pradā pūrṇā bhoginī bhuvaneśvarī |
ambikā'nādi-nidhanā hari-brahmendra-sevitā ǁ 69 ǁ
291. पुरुषार्थप्रदा — Puruṣārtha-pradā
Translation: The bestower of the puruṣārthas — the four aims of life (dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She grants all four human ends — virtue, wealth, pleasure, and liberation. The apavāda: she gives the three worldly aims to those who seek them, and the fourth, liberation, to those ready for it — and that fourth is not a fruit added but the recognition of her who is the seeker's own Self; she “gives liberation” by being it. The first three are her gifts; the fourth is herself.
Śrī Vidyā: Puruṣārtha-pradā grants all four goals of life, worldly and supreme; the Śrī Vidyā's promise of both bhukti and mukti.
292. पूर्णा — Pūrṇā
Translation: Pūrṇā — the full, complete, lacking nothing.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: A supreme word: she is “the Full.” The apavāda: this is the plenitude (pūrṇatā) the whole hymn has circled — the fullness the negations uncovered and the Sarva-/Mahā- names affirmed, here in a single word. As the great invocation says, “that is full, this is full; from the full the full proceeds; taking the full from the full, the full alone remains.” She is that pūrṇa — to which nothing can be added and from which nothing is lost, even as worlds pour out of her. The Full does not diminish by creating, nor increase by dissolving.
Śrī Vidyā: Pūrṇā is the perfect fullness of the Absolute (the pūrṇam of the Īśa Upaniṣad's invocation); the Goddess as the plenum the manifold never depletes.
293. भोगिनी — Bhoginī
Translation: Bhoginī — the enjoyer (and she of bhoga: delight, and the coiled power).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the enjoyer. The apavāda: bhoga is experience-and-delight, and she is the one experiencer in all enjoying (as Mahā-bhogā showed) — yet her enjoyment is the self-relishing of the Full, which, complete, savours only its own being. (Bhoginī also carries the sense of the serpent — the coiled kuṇḍalinī — and of luxuriant delight; she enjoys as the very capacity for joy.)
Śrī Vidyā: Bhoginī is the Goddess of enjoyment and of the coiled power (bhoga); she who grants and is the experience of bliss.
294. भुवनेश्वरी — Bhuvaneśvarī
Translation: Bhuvaneśvarī — the supreme ruler of the worlds (bhuvana).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is the sovereign of all the worlds. The apavāda: Bhuvaneśvarī — like Sarveśvarī — names not dominion over an other but the all-pervading lordship of the One whose own being the worlds are; she rules the worlds as the Self rules its own appearings, by being their very ground.
Śrī Vidyā: Bhuvaneśvarī is the supreme sovereign of the worlds, one of the Mahāvidyās; the Goddess as the queen of cosmic space, the ākāśa of consciousness in which the worlds float.
295. अम्बिका — Ambikā
Translation: Ambikā — the Mother.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The tender, ancient name: Ambikā, “Mother.” The apavāda: after the cosmic vastness — thousand-headed, world-sovereign — the hymn returns to the intimate; she is the nearest and dearest, the Mother. And the apavāda is gentle: “Mother” is the relation in which the non-dual is most easily loved — for the child is of the mother's own substance, born of her, never truly separate. To call her Ambikā is to know oneself her own.
Śrī Vidyā: Ambikā is the supreme Mother, an ancient Vedic name of the Goddess (Rudra's Ambikā); the maternal heart of the Devī.
296. अनादिनिधना — Anādi-nidhanā
Translation: Anādi-nidhanā — without origin (anādi) and without end (nidhana).
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: She is beginningless and endless. The apavāda: beginning and end belong to what is in time; she is anādi-nidhanā as the timeless (Nityā) in which time itself arises — without a first moment, for she precedes the very measure of moments, and without a last, for there is nothing beyond her into which she could cease. The Full, again: no edge in time.
Śrī Vidyā: Anādi-nidhanā is the beginningless and endless Absolute; the eternal Goddess, source and end of all that begins and ends.
297. हरिब्रह्मेन्द्रसेविता — Hari-brahmendra-sevitā
Translation: Who is served by Hari (Viṣṇu), Brahmā, and Indra.
Adhyāropa–Apavāda: The great gods themselves serve her. The apavāda: as Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Indra hymned her after the war and as Bhairava worshipped her, so here they “serve” — the highest powers attending the one whose powers they are; their service is the cosmos's order arranging itself around its centre. The served and the servers are one reality, the centre and its radiance.
Śrī Vidyā: Hari-brahmendra-sevitā is attended by the foremost gods; the supreme deity whom even Viṣṇu, Brahmā and Indra wait upon.
Part X continues in Article 7.
Śrī Lalitā Sahasranāma — Article 6 of 20 · Nāmas 249–297.
Devanagari per the sanskritdocuments.org recension (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, Uttarakhaṇḍa; Hayagrīva–Agastya saṃvāda); numbering per the Bhāskararāya canonical 1000-count. Transliteration, translation, and commentary original to this edition.
