ശ്രീ വിഷ്ണു സ്തവരാജഃ

Twenty verses from the Kalki Purana, spoken there by Padma, and the description runs upward rather than down. It begins at the feet — the lotus feet that are Lakshmi's dwelling, where devotees settle like bees among the tulasi leaves, the high red nails, the taste of the Ganga in them — and takes the next verse for the anklets and the flashing girdle and the fluttering hem of the yellow robe. Only at the eleventh does it reach the face, lovely with the opening of a smile, red-lipped, rich with the nectar of gentle speech, its restless eyes drawn like leaf-designs. Beginning at the feet and ending at the crown is the older order of these hymns, and this is one of the few here that keeps it.