bhuvaneśvarī cālīsā

A Hindi chalisa to Bhuvaneshvari, and it keeps to what her name says: she is the mistress of the worlds, so the verses are about extent rather than about episodes. The fourteen worlds are her spreading out; she is the support of everything; the whole creation is her maya and nobody has got past it; she is the sun and the moon and the stars in the sky. Her seed syllable is named outright — hrim is yours, and whoever recites it crosses over — which is unusual in a chalisa and is the one place the Mahavidya tradition shows through. Around that it does the ordinary work of the form, naming Madhu and Kaitabha and Mahishasura and Shumbha and Nishumbha and Raktabija, and giving her the three great goddesses as offices: Annapurna who gives food, Lakshmi who gives wealth, Mahasarasvati who gives learning.