śrī viśvakarmā cālīsā

A Hindi chalisa to Vishvakarma which opens on a technical claim rather than a devotional one. Its first doha identifies him with Tvashtr, the Vedic artificer, and calls him the ground of the work of craft; and its sorattha piles up Vedic epithets, the ancient fair-winged one, Sanaga and Sanatana and Ahibhu, and then the plainest of all, the first teacher of craft. That vocabulary places him in the ritual texts rather than in the Puranas. The chalisa is kept by the artisan communities that take him as ancestor, and its day is the one when tools and machines are worshipped instead of used, so its requests are made on behalf of the work of hands. It calls him teacher of the world and the removal of the sorrow of gods and demons alike.