ഭവഭഞ്ജനസ്തോത്രമ്

Four verses to Shiva, each closing on the same petition — may the Lord swiftly shake off the bondage of worldly existence — from which the hymn takes its name. The praise is in images rather than argument: lips whose redness has humbled the pride of the bimba fruit; the one at whose feet all learning comes to those who bow; the dweller who has made the peak of Kailasa his perpetual home; a radiance like the full moon, and a left side embraced by the daughter of the mountain king. The closing verse gives the practice and its fruit — recited at dawn, purified and collected in mind, it releases from sorrow and from rebirth.