ജ്വാലാ ദേവീ ചാലീസാ

Forty verses in Hindi to the goddess of Jwalamukhi, the seat in the Himachal hills where the object of worship is not an image but a natural flame. The opening doha names it as a shakti-pitha and calls her Jwalpa, the local form of the name, and asks for the gift of devotion before anything else — let me hold your meditation in the heart and become your servant. What follows keeps to the shrine and to what pilgrims come for, ease and abundance and the sight of her. The closing doha is a vow rather than a claim: let me go on worshipping Jwalpa as long as these breaths last, and it signs itself with the single word Om.