ଗୁହ୍ଯକାଲ୍ଯାଃ ସହସ୍ରନାମସ୍ତୋତ୍ରମ୍

The thousand and one names of Guhyakali, from the tenth patala of the Mahakala Samhita. The Devi asks for them, and Mahakala answers that he had them in an earlier kalpa from the destroyer of Tripura, whom the viniyoga names as the sage of the hymn; the goddess is invoked from her one-faced to her hundred-faced form. The names begin among the cremation ground and end in a long ladder of Kali-forms that is the distinctive part of this text: reflection, subtle, witness, memory, dissolution, knowledge, bliss, liberation and nirvana. A short reading of 108 names is appended for a reciter who cannot take up the thousand each day. The closing phalashruti is tantric in register, prescribing yantra worship and daily offerings over twenty-four days.