ଶ୍ରୀ ଵାଣୀ ପ୍ରଶ୍ନମାଲା ସ୍ତଵଃ

A garland of questions, and the title is exact: every one of its verses is a question, and every one ends by asking her to say why. Am I not your son, mother of this world of moving and unmoving things — why do you keep me at a distance, goddess of speech? Tell me the reason. What did the venerable teachers say, who were your devotees and my own best gurus before me — I am your own true-born son, so why do you keep me far off? Then the objection that gives the sequence its edge: does contempt arise in mothers toward their sons from too much familiarity? That has never been seen anywhere. And another: you quickly give what is wished for even to those who bow only occasionally, and I have not bowed even once. Its last verse places the speaker in Nṛhari's grove, listening to Śaṅkara's Vivekacūḍāmaṇi, still asking.