śrī durgā mānasa pūjā (Mental Worship)

A worship performed entirely in the mind, from the Durga Tantra, its closing verse counting sixteen verses fashioned as the sixteen services. Nothing is physically offered and everything is imagined in detail: sandals bathed in streams reddened with sandal and saffron; a golden throne; champaka and ketaki oil for the anointing; amalaki for the hair, combed and washed in the Mandakini; musk carried on the lotus hands of Indra's queen; saffron-coloured cloth; earrings, ring, girdle, anklets, necklace, bangles and crown, each named in its place; collyrium made of the herbs of heaven; a coral mirror born of the churning of the ocean; incense, lamp, rice with its seasonings, payasa and betel. The last verse asks for nothing but longing after her, which it calls a fruit not won in crores of births.