śrī śyāmalā kavacam

An armour of Shyamala in a dialogue where the Goddess asks and Bhairava answers, and its method of covering the body is the interesting one. Instead of assigning a goddess to each limb by name alone, it assigns them by the classes of the alphabet: Brahmi, who arises from the a-class, guards the face; Maheshi, who is seated in the ka-class, the right arm; and so on through the seven Mothers and the seven classes until the body and the letters have been mapped onto one another. Guardians of the quarters follow. The last verse is the strongest statement of the teacher's place in this corpus: if Shiva is lost the teacher saves, and if the teacher is lost there is nobody at all.