Saubhagyahrdayastotra by Sivananda
by Brian Campbell and Ben Williams | 2024 | 11,962 words
This is the English translation of the Saubhagyahrdayastotra (“praise to the heart of auspiciousness”) by Sivananda (fl. 13th century South India), who was one of the earliest interpreters of the Tantric tradition of goddess worship known as Shri-Vidya. The Saubhagyahrdaya Stotra embodies Shivananda’s synthesis of foundational Shaiva doctrine, Kund...
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Verse 5 (text and translation)
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 5:
मूलादिबिलपर्यन्तं महात्रिपुरसुन्दरि ।
या तनुस् ते तडित्प्रख्या तां भजे भवशातनीम् ॥ ५ ॥mūlādibilaparyantaṃ mahātripurasundari |
yā tanus te taḍitprakhyā tāṃ bhaje bhavaśātanīm || 5 ||O Tripurasundarī, I worship your form that brings mundane existence to an end, flashing like a streak of lightning from the root [center] to the space of the crown.
Notes:
The rise of kuṇḍalinī (subtle creative life-force energy) can take on a number of different forms, both sudden and sequential, as it awakens within the human body. In this verse, Śivānanda describes worshiping a form of Tripurasundarī that destroys worldly existence, thereby liberating the practitioner from the cycle of birth and death. Śivānanda relates this awesome form of the goddess to an electrifying experience of the sudden rise of kuṇḍalinī that “flashes like a streak of lightning” through the principal cakras beginning with mūlādhāra (root center) and ending with brahmarandhra (top of the head).
The Vijñānabhairavatantra teaches a strikingly similar meditation in its twenty-ninth verse that instructs one to meditate upon the rise of kuṇḍalinī in the form of lightning (taḍidrūpām).
From within the Śrīvidyā tradition, the thirtieth chapter of the Gandharvatantra also teaches a meditation on kuṇḍalinī in the form of lightning as follows:[1]
ताम् एव त्वां पुनर् वच्ये भावनाम् आन्तरात्मिकाम् ।
मूलादिब्रह्मरन्ध्रान्तं स्फुरद्विद्युल्लताकृतिम् ॥ ५७ ॥
ध्यायेत् कुण्डलिनीं देवि तद्विद्यास्वररूपिणीम् ।
षट्चक्रभेदिनीं देवीं बिन्दुत्रयात्मिकां पराम् ॥ ५८ ॥tām eva tvāṃ punar vacye bhāvanām āntarātmikām |
mūlādibrahmarandhrāntaṃ sphuradvidyullatākṛtim || 57 ||
dhyāyet kuṇḍalinīṃ devi tadvidyāsvararūpiṇīm |
ṣaṭcakrabhedinīṃ devīṃ bindutrayātmikāṃ parām || 58 ||“O Goddess, I will teach you once more this inner empathic meditation: Visualize the supreme goddess Kuṇḍalinī in the form of a streak of lightning flashing from the root center to the top of the head. As the sonic essence of the Vidyā, She pierces the six centers and is embodied as three bindus.”[2]
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Grateful to André Padoux (2013, 68) for this Gandharvatantra chapter and verse reference.
[2]:
Translation by Ben Williams.