శ్రీ రేణుకా హృదయమ్

A heart-hymn from the Skanda Purana, spoken by Shiva when Skanda asks for it, with Anandabhairava for its seer. Its first movement is prose rather than verse — an unbroken chain of vocatives naming her as maker and destroyer and protector of all, as Ekavira, as the syllables hrim and klim and aim and om, as the ten-lettered and twelve-lettered and sixteen-lettered mantras. The verses that follow are all built the same way, saluting her under some other name and then closing, to Renuka, salutation and salutation. What is remarkable is how wide the net is thrown. Lalita, Padmavati, Brahmani, Kamala, Tulaja, Bagala, Shitala, Bhadrakali and Jvalamukhi are there as expected; but so are the rivers Kaveri and Narmada and Mandakini, and so, in successive verses, are Ahalya and Mandodari.