The Lalita Sahasranama · Part 10: The Final Hundred Names

The first names of the tenth part seat the Goddess at the root of sound and of reality itself. She abides as the primordial nada, the original vibration that is the source of all sound, before any of it has hardened into a word; she awakens the knowledge of Brahman, she holds the power to bring creation forth, and she is skilled in every discipline. Enthroned at the bindu, the central point of the Shrichakra, she stands beyond all the tattvas and is herself the supreme tattva. The meaning of the great utterance ‘tat’ and ‘tvam’, that and you, opens within her, and the chant of the Samaveda is dear to her.

Next the Goddess’s nature unfolds, cool and gentle as the moon. She is the consort of Sadashiva, present in both the right-hand and left-hand paths of worship, and she wards off every calamity. She rests within her own being, free of all afflictions, sweet by her very nature, with nothing left in her that needs settling. She is wisdom itself and she grants wisdom, and the wise worship her alone.

Now the mode of worship deepens, and the tray of offerings empties of everything a hand could carry to it. She is adored by offering pure consciousness itself as the sacred water, and the flower of consciousness is dear to her. She is forever risen, forever radiant, forever content, glowing red as the morning sun. Devotees of both the right-hand and left-hand observance worship her, and a faint smile rests on her lotus face. Seekers of the Kaula path adore her as pure consciousness; she is one, without a second, and she grants the priceless state of kaivalya, the final liberation.

Now praise itself becomes the object of praise. Her own praise is dear to her, and she is the essence of all hymns, their true subject, so the praise inside any hymn has been traveling toward her the whole time; the Shrutis sing of her glory. Endowed with the highest power of mind, lofty in spirit, mistress of great renown, she is Maheshvari, the wife of Mahesha. Her very form is auspicious, her darshan is itself a blessing, and the radiance of her body drives all misfortune away.

Here the Goddess’s motherhood grows to encompass the whole world. She is the mother of all creation, from whose womb every world is born, is nourished, and returns; the mother who holds and sustains the universe, wide of eye. And at the same time she is dispassion itself, free of all craving, a mother who wants nothing back from her children, adept and full of self-assurance, supremely generous and abundant in giving, and herself the form of the highest joy.

Now the Goddess’s form grows vast and tantric. She pervades all as mind itself; her hair is the sky itself; she rides a celestial chariot and roams with the gods, and she bears the thunderbolt. She is the presiding deity of the Vamakeshvara Tantra, and the five yajnas are dear to her. Here comes the most hidden form of all, and the hymn sets it down without lowering its voice: she who reclines on a couch built from five corpses, the five lords stretched out in death, Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Ishvara, and Sadashiva; she is the fifth power beyond those four, the sovereign of the five great elements, worshiped with the five offerings.

The next names rest on the Goddess’s eternity and her good fortune. She is everlasting, and her sovereignty is everlasting; she grants happiness, and she is so beautiful that she enchants even Shambhu, the one who once burned Kamadeva to ash. She is Dhara, the earth itself, the Earth-Mother, and at once the daughter of Himavan, the ground underfoot and the girl born to the mountain standing over it; supremely blessed, endowed with great sovereignty, steadfast in dharma and the one who makes dharma grow.

Now the note turns toward what lies past the senses. She is beyond all the worlds, beyond the three gunas of sattva, rajas, and tamas, beyond everything; every guna arises from her, yet none of them can bind her. Peace and bliss in form, she glows red as the bandhuka flower. Then, a breath after calling her beyond everything, the hymn calls her a small girl at her games, forever a child, delighting in her own play.

Here the Goddess appears as the bride whose marriage never ends. She is forever fortunate, forever auspicious, the giver of happiness, adorned in beautiful garments and jewels, the eternal wife, and the good fortune in that word has no end written into it. The worship of married women pleases her, and she shines everywhere; her mind is pure and she purifies the minds of her devotees as well, and the libation offered at the bindu of the Shrichakra contents her.

The final turn descends into the deepest secrets of Shrividya, the part of it that is shown with the hands. She exists before all else, born at the beginning, the mother of the three cities, worshiped through the ten mudras, and the power Tripurashri stands under her command. She abides as the jnana-mudra, reached through the yoga of knowledge, the form of both the knower and the known; she is the yoni-mudra, sovereign of the trikhanda mudra, joined with the three gunas, and, after all of that, the mother of all living beings.

Just before the close, the Goddess comes forward as the very image of compassion and grace. She dwells in the triangle of the Shrichakra, sinless and flawless, wondrous in her deeds, the giver of every desired thing; she is known only through the most rigorous practice and nothing less, and her nature lies beyond the six pathways. She is the embodied form of causeless mercy, mercy that waits for no reason to be given, a shining lamp that scatters the darkness of ignorance, known by everyone down to children and cowherds, and her rule no one can transgress.

And now the sahasranama reaches its summit, and the last five names arrive the way a recitation arrives at its own doorstep. The Goddess dwells within the Shrichakra, the king of all chakras, the supreme beauty of the three worlds, Shrimati Tripurasundari. Then come the final three names, in which the whole essence is held. ‘Shrishiva’, the auspicious Shiva graced with Shri, the form that shows the Goddess to be one with Shiva, for Shakti is Shiva’s own auspicious expression. Then ‘Shivashaktyaikyarupini’, the embodied form of the union of Shiva and Shakti, where this thread opens: the two are a single supreme reality seen from two sides, prakasha the light and vimarsha the awareness that turns back on itself; the first shloka of Adi Shankaracharya’s Saundaryalahari rests on exactly this, and the Kanchi Kamakoti tradition holds it to be the root utterance. And at the last, ‘Lalitambika’, Lalita the Mother. The journey of nine hundred ninety-nine names finds its fullness here, and the Goddess settles into one simple form of the Mother. In the traditional recitation, ‘namah’, salutation, is joined to the end of every name, yet at this final name the seeker only calls out to the Mother, and that call is his completion.