kamalāṣṭakam

Eight verses of extreme technical difficulty, and the difficulty is the offering. Every line is worked in yamaka — the same syllables recurring in different senses within a single line — so that the first verse turns on -shanka and -anka, the second on -acha and -vacha, and each is a puzzle the reciter unpicks as much as a prayer. The second verse says why plainly enough once untangled: I do not reckon on driving away the low by bitter and talkative means, but ask, mother of the world, for the way of the ancients, of skilful speech, for the unfolding of the cleverness of learned people whose conduct is beyond words. The last verse turns on -dosha, fault, and asks her to remove the faults of one who is himself a house of them.