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...
Go directly to: Footnotes.
Verse 11 (text and translation)
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 11:
नेत्रादिजालकोपान्ते हृत्पद्मासनलीलया ।
वारं वारं त्वया देवि रूपादिमधु सेव्यते ॥ ११ ॥netrādijālakopānte hṛtpadmāsanalīlayā |
vāraṃ vāraṃ tvayā devi rūpādimadhu sevyate || 11 ||Dancing upon the throne of the [yogī’s] heart lotus, O Goddess, you continually revel in the intoxicating wine of visual forms and other [sensations] at the threshold of the array of senses.
Notes:
In this potent verse, Śivānanda exquisitely describes an elevated form of worship where the goddess drinks in, like an intoxicating wine, the blissful activity of the practitioner's senses precisely at the threshold (upānte) of where they meet objects of experience. This verse also hints at an aesthetic form of deity pervasion (āveśa) where the goddess moves within the being of the practitioner, enjoying the objective world through their senses.
Similar practices and states of awareness that couple the enjoyment of outer sensations with maintaining firm awareness and stability within the center of one's own being are described in several tantric sources as Bhairavīmudrā and śaktivikāsa.[1]
The Kakṣyāstotra teaches a similar practice of maintaining complete awareness in the midst of engaging the senses through perception:
सर्वाः शक्तीश् चेतसा दर्शनाद्याः स्वे स्वे वेद्ये यौगपद्येन विषक् ।
क्षिप्त्वा मध्ये हाटकस्तम्भभूतस् तिष्ठन् विश्वाधार एकोऽ वभासि ॥sarvāḥ śaktīś cetasā darśanādyāḥ sve sve vedye yaugapadyena viṣak |
kṣiptvā madhye hāṭakastambhabhūtas tiṣṭhan viśvādhāra eko' vabhāsi ||“[If] you project the vision and all the other powers [of the senses] simultaneously everywhere onto their respective objects by the power of awareness, while remaining firmly established in the centre like a pillar of gold, you [will] shine as the One, the foundation of the universe.”[2]
This verse of the Saubhāgyahṛdayastotra is cited by Maheśvarānanda in his Parimala commentary to verse two of his Mahārthamañjarī.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
See Bansat-Boudon and Tripathi 2011, 343; Dyczkowski 1987, 157-162.
[2]:
Translation by Dyczkowski 1987, 158.