śrī śākambharī cālīsā

The second Hindi chalisa to Shakambhari in this corpus, and where the Awadhi one is iconographic and narrative, this one is almost wholly theological. It works by equations rather than by episodes: she is the full brahman and the remover of sorrow, cause and instrument both, the maker of the world, the undying flame; she is Narayani and the shining of brahman, imperishable in water and on land and in the sky. Aparna is used of her twice in two lines, once for her own greatness and once as the mother of Brahma and Hari and Hara. What narrative it has is compressed into a single recurring claim — that whenever the devoted have called on her, her flame has appeared — rather than into the Durgama story its companion tells at length. Its opening dohas set the guru's feet before the goddess's, as the form requires.