ശ്രീ ഗോപാല സ്തവഃ (ദശാവതാര സ്തവഃ)

Eleven verses by Raghunathacharya, each ending Gopala is my refuge, and each built on the same reversal — the god who did a thing set beside the god who does its opposite. He who as a fish protected the Vedas is the very one who withdraws them; who as a tortoise bore the earth on his back is the one who withdraws creation; who as a boar lifted the earth on his tusk is the remover of the earth's burden; who as Vamana outwitted king Bali is the one outwitted by the cowherd women; who as Jamadagni's son emptied the earth of kshatriyas is the benefactor of kshatriyas; who in the Buddha's form set people on the heterodox road is himself the undoing of heterodoxy. The eleventh leaves the avataras for Govardhana held up like a lotus in the hand, and the mortar he was tied to. Whoever writes that row of eleven abodes in the heart, it says, goes to the highest end.