ଶ୍ରୀ ବାଲା ପଞ୍ଚରତ୍ନ ସ୍ତୋତ୍ରମ୍

Five verses of a very unusual kind: each is a nearly unbroken chain of names in the nominative, strung by sound rather than by sense, so that the hymn reads as a cascade. She is Ayi, the creeper of bliss, nectar in the palm, the primal power, the highest; Maya, whose form is the self of maya, made of crystal beads, Matangi, of six limbs; knowledge and the self of knowledge, the fragrance of the lotus, the form of the sound Om; the yogini seated in the yoga posture. Later verses bring her into the practitioner's own life — friend of my heart in the Bala mantra — and set the fierce names beside the sweet ones without apology. The last verse ends on the widest of them: she is present, she is the seat itself, she bears the age of dissolution, she is the three of Brahma and Vishnu.