mahā sarasvatī stavam

Desiring to worship the auspicious Goddess who upholds the world, I shall praise Sarasvatī, the womb of Brahman, bowing to her with my head.

O Goddess, whatever is being and non-being, whatever word conduces to liberation or to worldly good — all of it abides in you unmingled, and yet joined as in yoga, O Goddess.

You are the imperishable, O Goddess, the supreme, in whom all things are established; and that supreme imperishable, O Goddess, abides as the finest atom.

The imperishable is the supreme Brahman, while this universe is of a perishable nature — as fire lies latent within wood, and as the atoms lie within the earth.

So does Brahman abide in you, and this whole world without remainder — all that rests in the syllable Om, O Goddess, whether moving or unmoving.

Within that threefold measure is everything that is and is not, O Goddess: the three worlds, the three Vedas, the threefold knowledge, the three sacred fires.

The three lights and the three orders; the three traditions of law; the three qualities, the three utterances, the three Vedas, and the three stages of life.

The three times, the three states of consciousness, the fathers, day and night and the rest — this threefold measure, O Goddess Sarasvatī, is your very form.

For those who see by different lights you are the first and eternal source of Brahman; and the seven forms of offering — those of soma, those of oblation, those of cooked food —

— these, O Goddess, the knowers of Brahman perform by uttering you. And there is yet another, beyond all pointing, joined with the half-measure, supreme —

— unchanging, undecaying, divine, free of all transformation. This, your supreme form, I have no power to utter.

Nor can the tongue declare it, with mouth and ruddy lips. Indra too, and the Vasus, Brahmā, the moon and the sun, and light itself —

— the dwelling of the universe, of universal form, lord of all, the supreme ruler; declared in the doctrines of Sāṅkhya and Vedānta, made firm by many branches of learning —

— without beginning, middle or end; being and non-being, and yet neither; one and manifold and not one, resting upon the differences of becoming —

— nameless, yet called the six-fold and called the classes; the support of the three qualities; the one among those possessed of many powers, supreme in the majesty of power —

— pleasure and pain, and the form of great bliss, are all conceived in you. Thus, O Goddess, by you is pervaded all that has parts and all that has none: the Brahman that abides in non-duality, and that which stands within duality.

Those things that are eternal and those others that perish; those that are gross and those subtler than the subtle; those upon the earth, those in the mid-air or elsewhere — the apprehension of each and every one of them comes from you alone.

Whatever is formless and whatever has form, the whole of it; whatever among beings is one and whatever is manifold; whatever is divine upon the face of the earth, in the sky or elsewhere — all of it is bound to you, through your vowels and your consonants.