ଶ୍ରୀଚାମୁଣ୍ଡା ସ୍ତୁତିଃ

From the Srishti Khanda of the Padma Purana, and spoken by Rudra himself. The body of it is a single chain of vocatives with scarcely a verb in seven verses: night of time, misshapen-eyed and three-eyed, of terrible form, great-bellied, conqueror of the mind and impassable to it, great pestilence, fond of song and dancing; then blazing-faced, sharp-fanged, noose in one hand and staff in another, fond of the jackal for a vehicle, seated on a corpse. Four names in a row are only the one word intensified — Karali, Vikarali, Mahakali, Karalini. The verse that closes it names what she is: this power, joined with knowledge, is called Shivaduti. Its promises are oddly exact. A king who has lost his kingdom, fasting on the eighth and ninth and fourteenth, gets it back whole within the year; and the text written out and kept in a house keeps fire and thieves from it.