ஸந்த்யாவலீக்ரு'தம் லக்ஷ்மீஸ்தோத்ரம்

Sandhyavali, the queen of Bali, praises Mahalakshmi with folded hands — and the hymn is spoken at the moment her husband has been bound, which is what gives it its urgency. Salutation to the mother, to Mahalakshmi; save my husband, who is your devotee. What follows drops out of the personal register entirely and into cosmology: salutation to you who are named nature, to you the root, salutation upon salutation; to the withdrawer, to the mother of brahman, to her from whose womb creation comes. The hymn moves between those two things throughout — a wife asking for one man, and a theology of the goddess as the ground of everything — and it comes from the hundred and fifty-fifth chapter of the Lakshmi Narayaniya Samhita.