śrīrudrayāmale śrī bālā trailokyavijaya kavacam

The armour called victory over the three worlds, from the Rudrayamala, and one of the longer kavachas in this collection. It opens by naming itself — now I shall tell you the armour whose body is the mantra, the secret called Trailokya Vijaya, hard for the gods to get — and then identifies the goddess it protects by: the three-syllabled Bala, the digit of consciousness, Sarasvati, mistress of the great sciences, the eternal, the great Tripurasundari. That chain of identifications is the point of the text as much as the protection is; it places Bala in a line that runs from the goddess of speech to the supreme goddess of the school. The last verse returns to concealment: this is to be hidden always, as one hides one's own origin.