ஶ்ரீ மஹாலக்ஷ்மீ ஸ்தவஃ

Narayana's own hymn to Lakshmi, from the twenty-second chapter of the Ganapati Khanda in the Brahmavaivarta Purana, and it opens by admitting that the task is beyond the speaker — which carries a particular weight when the speaker is her husband. Goddess, I wish to praise you; the lords themselves are not able to praise you, who are beyond the reach of the understanding, subtle, whose form is light, everlasting, and utterly beyond description — who then is able to describe you? The second keeps the same footing: made of your own will, formless, whose body is grace to devotees — I praise you who are past speech and mind; or what am I, mother of the world? Thirteen verses, and the confession of inadequacy is sustained through all of them.