chinnamastā cālīsā

A Hindi chalisa to Chhinnamasta which is really a chalisa to Rajrappa, the shrine at the meeting of the Damodar and the Bhairavi in Jharkhand, and it tells two stories. The first is the one the goddess is named for: she went with Jaya and Vijaya to bathe at the confluence, her companions grew hungry and cried out for food, and she cut off her own head on the spot and gave them her blood to drink. The second is local and later. A brahmin at Bhandardah met a girl in red who asked him to put bangles on her, and told him to collect the price from her father, the temple priest; the priest, hearing it, went with him to the water, and the two of them saw Chhinnamasta there. Its opening dohas give the image in two lines, the severed head held in the hand and the pair of lovers underfoot.