ଶ୍ରୀ ରେଣୁକା ସ୍ତୋତ୍ରମ୍

Parashurama's hymn to his own mother, and it is the one text in this cluster that looks straight at her fierce form. The early verses are metaphysical enough — the garland of the alphabet from a to ksha, the coil of the kundalini at the navel wheel, the one beyond the strands who is made of them. Then the descriptions begin and do not soften. Four-armed with a sword and a great damaru and a head held in a bowl; blue-robed and blue, wearing a peacock feather, with a forest Bhil's bow in the left hand and the arrow in the right; breaker of Sahasrarjuna; red-toothed, carrying the skull-staff, riding a corpse. And in the middle of that, in a single half-line, she is called the wife of a sage and a goddess, which is the whole difficulty of Renuka set down without any attempt to resolve it.