শ্রীকালীধ্যানম্ (Dakshina Kali Dhyana)

Thirteen meditation verses, and the first is the one by which the form is generally fixed: in her hands a freshly severed head, a scimitar, the gesture of safety and the giving of boons; a terrible face, a garland of heads, the hair let loose; blood at the corners of the mouth; her dwelling the cremation ground, corpses at her ears, her limbs dark, and a girdle made of the hands of the dead. The verses that follow vary the same figure — mounted on a jackal, four-armed, laughing; then gentler, her face smiling and her look heavy. The last verse gives her a sentence of her own, which none of the others do: tell me what you wish and I shall give it. It is on that speaking form that the meditation finally settles.