mātaṃgī dhyānam - śyāmāṃgīṃ śaśiśekharāṃ trinayanāṃ ratnasiṃhāsanasthitām

A single meditation verse on Matangi, the Mahavidya who presides over speech and over what is left over, and it is the whole iconography compressed into one line. Her limbs are dark; the moon is on her crest; she has three eyes; she is seated on a throne of jewels. Her arms are counted by naming the Vedas rather than by giving a number, which is a way of saying four and reminding the reciter what she governs at the same time; and in them are the sword, the shield, the noose and the goad. Nothing else is said. Verses of this kind stand at the head of a longer worship and are recited while the image is being built up in the mind, which is why this one has no apparatus and no fruit attached to it.