ଅମ୍ବା ସ୍ତଵଃ

She whom the sages call the ancient Prakṛti; she whom those versed in the secrets of śruti call Vidyā — that one I salute: the Mother, who holds the luminous city of the three worlds in her womb.

O Mother, in attempts to praise you, even the power to weave words becomes blunted and fails. My speech is that of a mere child — yet accept it with the same indulgence a mother shows, O birthless Goddess.

As Vyoma (space), as Bindu (the point of pure consciousness), as Nāda (the primordial sound), as Indu-lekhā (the crescent of the moon), as Vāgbhava-tanū (the body of speech-origin), as Mātṛkā (the matrix of all letters) — in these forms those who are beyond birth and death praise her.

Those whose bodies perpetually manifest rows of horripilation, whose eyes stream with tears — with voices trembling with devotion they describe your glories, O Goddess, yet still they say: we have not spoken truly.

The face raised up to praise you — may it offer you salutation. The head bowing to you, O Goddess — may it too offer you salutation. Even the act of bowing is itself a complete praise.

O Bhavāni, having risen from the hollow of the root-garden (mūlādhāra), piercing the six lotuses like a flash of lightning, and then returning again there — thus you dwell in your own abode, as the non-dual self of all.

When Kāma (desire) had been burned to ashes by Śiva, your captivating sidelong glance caused him to sprout again — the one becoming many. From that time on, Śiva bears the burden of the world's longing — as your own shadow.

One of unknown origin, untraceable lineage — a mendicant, skull-bearing, naked, matchless — you accepted his hand in marriage first, before all. O Goddess, this alone is the wonder of your grace.

Hide for garment, anointing with cremation-ash, wandering for alms, dancing in the cremation ground, attended by troops of Vetālas — all this you accepted, and made your own. Blessed indeed is the wonder of your acceptance.

His fierce, skillful tāṇḍava-dances in the sport of cosmic dissolution — by your gentle, compassionate glance they are instantly made cool and soft. O Goddess, what cannot your grace accomplish?

For a being in its final body, when its karmas stand in balance, O Kalyāṇī — in a single twinkling of an eye you are the cutter of the entire tangle of bonds, the bestower of liberation.

Adorned with pearl ornaments, radiant as fresh coral, you flash in the heart like an evening sky starred with stars — he alone sees everything, that one in whose heart you flash.

Those who meditate on you — Amṛteśvarī, moistening all the worlds with nets of nectar-bearing rays — they cross this ocean of existence as if it were a mere puddle.

One who meditates on her holding crystal rosary, book, and water-pot, hands raised as if to expound — white as the autumn moon — obtains the highest learning and mastery of all śāstras.

With peacock feathers as her ornament, with flowing, wavy, anointed tresses, adorned with a guñjā-berry necklace over her full breasts — dark-hued, with lips like coral, seated in the forest: on her the yogi fixes his mind.

The companions tease: 'O innocent one, what have you purchased with your tender creeper-like half? — the rough half of the Lord!' Thus laughing, the women of your retinue fill the assembly with delight.

This ocean of Māyā — crowded with clusters of universe-bubbles, its waves upon waves made of manifold suffering — is wondrous indeed that mortals swim in it without sinking, O Goddess, holding to your feet.

Dākṣāyaṇī, Kuṭilā, Kuhāriṇī, Kātyāyanī, Kamalā, Kalāvatī — being one Sattā (pure being), O Bhagavatī, you appear as many. Who can know the fullness of your nature?

O Īśā, your form manifested as Nāda in the region called Anāhata (the unstruck), characterized by ānanda (bliss) — is perceived by the mind turned inward. That one knows you as you truly are.

You are the moonlight in the moon, the brilliance in the blazing sun; you are consciousness in the Puruṣa, strength in the wind. You are fragrance in the earth, taste in water — in fire you are burning; in space you are the resonance of sound.

The luminaries that move in heaven, the atmosphere that nourishes the worlds with waters, the serpent that upholds the earth — all that shines, moves, and sustains is your power alone, O Amba.

When you wish to contract, O Girije, you are the nameless, formless ground of word and thought. When you expand, all of this — from Brahmā to a blade of grass — is your own manifestation.

O Goddess, the meritorious ones, worshipping you for the enjoyment of abundance, are given a thousand lotus-palaces made to serve at the bend of your eyebrow. Then, when finally they turn to you for liberation, you grant them that too.

O Īśā, it is you alone who can remove the entire burning heat of saṃsāra of bound souls — since all of it is under your control — through your compassion alone. Like the sun dispersing shadow, your mere glance removes the darkness.

Śakti, body, the overlord-deity, the inner self, knowledge, action, the instruments of perception and action, the network of āsanas, will — you are all of these, O Amba. What in the universe is not you?

Nivṛtti is born in earth, Pratiṣṭhā in water, Vidyā in fire, Śānti in wind — you alone are all these energies, the kalās of the five paths, O Amba.

O refuge of the world, as long as the pair of your lotus-feet is not welcomed in the heart — so long do the thickets of false constructs flourish, and the darkness of delusion does not lift.

Some, having made the mind sovereign over the entire circle of faculties, freed from wandering through the paths of the gods and ancestors — fixing it in meditation — reach the ground of your being in this very body.

O Amba, in any of the gross forms — earth and the rest — no one can measure the greatness of your manifestation. How much less can the subtler forms and the supreme formless reality be described?

O Amba, blazing with the brilliance of ten million fires of dissolution — in the purifications of the six paths (ṣaḍadhvan), in the flooding-consecrations, devotees experience you as a shower of nectar-torrents. Such is the paradox of your nature: fire and amṛta in one.

O Amba, some call you the Supreme Vidyā, some call you Ambara (the sky), some say you are pure Ānanda alone, and some call you Māyā. But you transcend all categories, known only to yourself.

Blue as the petal of a blue lotus, with wavy, well-oiled tresses, her slender waist compressed under the weight of full breasts — on this form the meditative mind rests. There is no other vision comparable.