śrī saṅkaṭāṣṭakam

Eight verses to Sankata Devi, whose shrine stands by the Ganga at Kashi, and every one of them ends the same way, salutation to Sankata, remover of hardship, Bhavani. The first verse fixes her by place before anything else, the one who dwells at Kashi on the bank of the Ganga, always worshipped with sandal and red flowers. What follows alternates without warning between the gentle and the fierce. She is the bewitching one, moon-faced, playing with swans, doe-eyed and coloured with the three strands; and then, in the very next verse, sword in hand with a garland of severed heads at the throat, roaring so that the earth shakes, and the crusher of the buffalo demon. A later verse calls her the goddess of release and the mother of the Veda.