Devi Lalita: One Thousand Names Of Devi Lalita  

By D S SARMA  

The Lalitasahasranama enumerates the one thousand names of Devi as Lalita-parameshwari . When Manmata , the god of love, was reduced to ashes by Shiva’s opening his third eye, the ashes were collected by Chitrakarman, one of Shiva’s attendants, who used it for drawing the figure of a man.

When Shiva glanced at the figure, it leaped into life at once. The artist advised the person so created to pray to Shiva, by reciting the Sata-Rudriya. Pleased at his devotion, Shiva blessed him with the overlordship of the world for 60,000 years. On hearing this, Brahma cried in dismay, '' Bhand, Bhand ’’ and so the person came to have the name Bhanda.

Bhanda grew up to become a formidable Asura and continually oppressed the gods. Narada advised Indra, the god-king, to do penance and seek Parashakti’s help. From Indra’s yagna there rose up a great Chakra and right at its centre was Devi, embodying the spirit of the Trimurti . The gods sang her praise; she promised to vanquish Bhandasura.

On Brahma’s advice, Devi chose a spouse for herself - it was none other than Shiva who had assumed the attractive form of Kameshvara. So Lalita became Kameshvari. After the gods had left, the goddess set out with an army of shaktis equipped with chariots, elephants and horses.

The battle between her and the demon raged for four days; at last Bhanda was killed with all his kinsmen and followers; his capital was razed to the ground. The gods now requested Devi to take pity on Rati, the wife of Manmata who had been burnt to death by Shiva. So she brought Manmata back to life and went away to Srinagara, built for her by both Vishvakarma and Maya on a peak of Mount Meru.

In its midst is a palace built of precious Chintamani stones; in the centre of the palace is the seat of the Devi . On a jewelled cot, the legs of which are formed by Brahma, Vishnu, Ishvara and Maheshvara and the coverlet by Sadashiva , Sri Lalita Devi sits in the lap of her husband, Kameshvara.

The Srichakra is, besides other things, a diagrammatic representation of the goddess and her capital, Sripura. Devotees perform japam with the Pancadasaksari mantra which forms the subtle body of the Devi and repeat this litany of a thousand names, which was composed by the gods of speech at the express command of Sri Lalita Paramesvari herself...

As a literary form, the Sahasranama is peculiar to Sanskrit literature, like the sutra and the samasa . We have these elliptical, mnemonic literary forms from which all unnecessary words are removed. In the Sahasranama the poet expresses his faith and philosophy of life, as also his theological beliefs, through the names he coins for his deity.

He has no room here for the elaboration of his subject, not even for logical connection between one statement and another. Topics have to be huddled together, like the words in a samasa, without any connecting links. And, in a Sahasranama, when samasas themselves are huddled together without even a conjunction, the resulting structure is like a building in which the walls are formed by neatly chiselled stones being placed one above the other without any mortar or cement between them.

Hence, as a literary form, the Sahasranama encourages brevity and restraint; it also encourages incoherence and obscurity. The drawback of many a Sahasranama is that all logical thinking is sacrificed to alliteration and assonance. Hence we often have more sound than sense. But in the Lalitasahasranama there is more of logical connection implied in the names so that they easily fall into sections like those dealing with the physical form of the goddess, her fight with Bhandasura, her different abodes and her manifestations in the chak-ras of the human body.

(From 'Sri Lalita Sahasranama’, Sri Ramakrishna Math. Tomorrow is Lalita Panchami)

.

.

See also: Devi Lalita, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)