ശ്രീ ദക്ഷിണാമൂര്തി മന്ത്ര കവചമ്

A short armour of seven verses built directly out of the Dakshinamurti mantra, and unusual in that the mantra is never written out. Each half-line names a syllable by its position in the alphabet instead — the fifth letter of the pa class, the fourth of the pa class, the third of the ka class, the letter of Varuna — and assigns it to a part of the body, so that the reciter who knows the mantra can reconstruct it while the text itself keeps it concealed. The sequence runs from the crown and forehead through the eyes, brows, face, ears and cheeks down to the wrists and the feet, closing on the syllable ha, which it calls the great mantra higher than the highest. The staged text keeps the source's marginal notes, which spell out the syllable each line intends.