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 9 (text and translation)

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 9:

अनाश्रितादिकालाग्निरुद्रान्तं चित्रम् अद्भुतम् ।
उन्मीलयसि मातस् त्वं प्रकाशवपुषि त्वयि ॥ ९ ॥

anāśritādikālāgnirudrāntaṃ citram adbhutam |
unmīlayasi mātas tvaṃ prakāśavapuṣi tvayi || 9 ||

O Mother, you dynamically display the extraordinary image of reality shining within your body of light—from the supreme independent pinnacle [Anāśritaśiva] down to the Rudra of cosmic dissolution.

Notes:

Śivānanda previously described the goddess as the saṃvidkalā (dynamism of consciousness) that, “shines forth as every reality that can be experienced.”[1] In this verse, Śivānanda describes the sum total of reality as shining within her body of light (prakāśavapuṣi). Taken together, these[2] two descriptions reveal the goddess as both lighting up and permeating every form of existence, as well as being permeated by this dynamic display of reality that constitutes her ultimate form.

Śivānanda uses the term, “anāśritādikālāgnirudrāntaṃ” (beginning with anāśritaśiva and ending with kālāgnirudra) to refer to the entire spectrum of the thirty-six tattvas (from śivatattva to pṛthvītattva).

Confirming that Kālāgnirudra refers to pṛthvītattva, Abhinvagupta teaches in the ninth chapter of his Tantrāloka:

तथाहि कालसदनाद् वीरभद्रपुरान्तगम् ।
धृतिकाठिन्यगरिमाद्यवभासाद् धरात्मता ॥ ३ ॥

tathāhi kālasadanād vīrabhadrapurāntagam |
dhṛtikāṭhinyagarimādyavabhāsād dharātmatā || 3 ||

“In this way, (for example, the reality principle that extends) from the abode of Kālāgni up to the world of Vīrabhadra is Earth, because the power to sustain (dhṛti) (physical objects), solidity (kāṭhinya), and weight (garimā) etc. manifest (in the worlds and things belonging to this tattva).”[3]

 

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

See verse four.

[2]:

Her “body” in this verse should be understood to be, as Professor Padoux clarifies in relation to the Śrīcakra, “a cosmic embodiment of the Goddess, not as a concrete body or form.” See Padoux 2013, 170, fn. 33.

[3]:

Translation by Dyczkowski 2023, VI, 5.

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