śrī śākambharyaṣṭakam (ādi śaṃkarācārya kṛta)

Eight verses ascribed to Shankaracharya, every one closing on the same phrase, mother of the three worlds, the auspicious one. The first half is iconography counted out hand by hand — bell and spear and sword and a written page in the four right hands; in the left, the vessel holding what remains of the offering, a head, the discus and a shield — and then the lion, the tiger-skin, the anklets, the necklace of stars. The last two verses are the reason to keep it. They stop describing the goddess and describe her place instead, naming the tirthas around the shrine one by one: Patra-tirtha to the south-west, Haridra-tirtha facing it, the oil-coloured water in the step-well, the meeting of three streams. Then the gate, where Ganapati of the curved trunk stands as guardian of the field, and in the middle the grove called Shri Tilaka, and Shakambhari in it.