lalitā mātā āratī

A short Hindi arati in four stanzas, its opening line returning as the refrain: victory to Shri Mateshvari, to Tripureshvari, to Rajeshvari, salutation and salutation again. What it names her by is what she undoes. She is full of compassion and the remover of every fault, the rainer of nectar; the destroyer of the inauspicious and the giver of all ease; the ruin of the ranks of the wicked. One line reaches for the story the longer Lalita texts tell at length and puts it in four words, hailing her as the one who killed the demon Bhanda. The closing lines ask nothing but refuge, repeating that the coming and the choosing are both hers.