ଶ୍ରୀ ମହାକାଲୀ ଶତନାମ ସ୍ତୋତ୍ରମ୍

A hundred names of Mahakali from the twenty-third chapter of the Brihannila Tantra, and its opening verse is a reminder rather than a request: you promised these once, the Goddess says, when you were absorbed in play — now tell them to me. Bhairava's answer sets the condition these texts usually set, that what he is about to say is properly untellable and is not to be made public. The names move between the abstract and the seen without warning: one verse gives her the garland of human heads, the sword in her hand, the terrible aspect and the loud laugh, and in the same breath calls her the lotus and one adorned with ruby. The thousand names of the chapter before this one stand in this corpus too, and open on the same verse.