શ્રી કાર્તિકેય ચાલીસા

A Hindi chalisa to Kartikeya which spends its opening verses on the fact that he has more parents than anyone else and gives each of them a line. He is Shiva's son and Uma's boy; the beloved of Gauri and the delight of Ganga; and then the verse that explains the name the chalisa is titled with — you are called the son of the Krittikas, and from that you came to be called Kartikeya. Six-faced, spear in hand, born in the reed thicket, commander of the armies of the gods, and the enemy of Tarakasura, which is the reason he was born at all. What it asks him for is the ordinary business of a chalisa, the ending of the taint of the Kali age and of poverty and sorrow, and it addresses him throughout by the northern name rather than by the southern ones.