vīrabhadrakṛtaṃ nṛsiṃhastotram

Vīrabhadra's hymn to Narasiṃha from the eleventh chapter of the Śatarudra Saṃhitā of the Śiva Purāṇa, preserved as an extract with its verses numbered from seventeen. It is the rarest kind of hymn in this cluster because of who is speaking and what he wants. Vīrabhadra praises Viṣṇu through the sequence of descents — the fish that gathered the circle of creatures and swam the single ocean, the boar that lifted the earth, this lion form by which Hiraṇyakaśipu was killed, the dwarf that bound Bali — and states the principle behind them all: whenever any suffering arises for the world, you descend and make it whole. Then the request, which is the point of the passage: this Narasiṃha body of yours is exceedingly terrible; withdraw it, self of all, here in my presence. The purpose of the whole is the quieting of the form, not its praise.