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Rudra Yāmala
Śaiva. The Yāmala the Vijñāna Bhairava names as its own source — its place among the sixty-four, the citations that cannot be traced, and the late eastern Śākta work that now carries the title.
No tantra is named more often than this one, and few are harder to lay hands on. The Rudrayāmala is quoted by the greatest authors of the Śaiva tradition, credited as the parent of texts that are themselves famous, and named as the authority behind hundreds of later practices — while the work that now circulates under the title accounts for very little of it. This page is about the title's standing among the seven and the history of its citation; the surviving book has a page of its own.
Where it stands among the sixty-four
The Bhairava stream of the Śaiva revelation is reckoned at sixty-four tantras arranged in eight aṣṭakas of eight, and one of those eight groups is the Yāmala-aṣṭaka. That arrangement is not a modern reconstruction, but neither is it drawn from a surviving scripture read whole: it is known chiefly from the Śrīkaṇṭhīyasaṃhitā, a text preserved principally in the long extract that Jayaratha (active in Kashmir in the first half of the thirteenth century) sets out in his Tantrālokaviveka on the opening chapter of Abhinavagupta's Tantrāloka. The canon of the sixty-four, in other words, reaches us through a commentator quoting a list.
Which eight titles fill the Yāmala group varies between the sources that give it, and the variation is real rather than careless — the rosters recur in shifting combinations, with names dropping out and others taking their place. A Rudrayāmala is on nearly every one of them, and generally near the head. The Subodhinī, the commentary that travels with the Narpati Jayacaryā and supplies the seven names Narapati himself does not, puts Rudra third in its own list, after Brahma and Viṣṇu.
Within the Bhairava stream the Yāmalas belong to the Vidyāpīṭha, the goddess-centred seat. The subdivision of that seat into Yāmala-tantras and Śakti-tantras — the second group holding the Trika and the Kālīkula — rests on the analysis of the surviving Vidyāpīṭha manuscripts carried out by Alexis Sanderson, set out first in his survey "Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions" (1988) and developed at length in later studies, above all "The Śaiva Age" (2009). On that arrangement the Yāmalas are the older half of the goddess-centred revelation and the Trika stands downstream of them, which is precisely the relation the Vijñāna Bhairava's opening verse asserts.
One member of the group survives in something close to its early form and can be used as a control on the rest. The Brahmayāmala, or Picumata, is preserved in a Nepalese palm-leaf codex of 1052 CE, and it is uncompromisingly kāpālika: skull-bowl, cremation ground, the cult of the yoginīs. Whatever the Rudrayāmala known to the Kashmirians was, that is the kind of book it will have been.
The claim at the head of the Vijñāna Bhairava
The Vijñāna Bhairava, the most-read practical scripture of the Trika, opens with the Goddess speaking, and her first words are a claim about where she has been:
श्रुतं देव मया सर्वं रुद्रयामलसम्भवम् । त्रिकभेदमशेषेण सारात्सारविभागशः ॥
śrutaṃ deva mayā sarvaṃ rudrayāmalasambhavam | trikabhedam aśeṣeṇa sārāt sāravibhāgaśaḥ ||
I have heard, O God, everything that arises from the Rudrayāmala — the whole of the Trika division, without remainder, in its distinctions from essence to essence.
She has heard the Trika portion of the Rudrayāmala entire, and it has not settled the question; her next verses ask for the sāra, the essence, and then for the essence of that. The hundred and twelve dhāraṇās that follow are given as the answer. Whatever the historical relation between the surviving texts, the structure of the claim is precise: the Vijñāna Bhairava presents itself as a distillate, and the Rudrayāmala as the reservoir it was distilled from.
The Kashmirian exegetes took the claim seriously enough to build on it. Kṣemarāja (c. 1000–1050), Abhinavagupta's pupil, began an Uddyota on the Vijñāna Bhairava and carried it only through the opening verses; the exegesis was completed long afterwards by Śivopādhyāya, generally placed in the eighteenth century, whose Vivṛti is the commentary most readers now use, and a further commentary by Ānandabhaṭṭa also survives. The text with its commentaries was printed early in the twentieth century in the Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies, and it reached a wider readership through Lilian Silburn's French translation of the early 1960s and Jaideva Singh's English one of the 1970s. None of these readers treats the opening verse as a formality. For them the text's authority is precisely that it is an extract, and an extract of the Trika section specifically — which is a claim that the Rudrayāmala contained a Trika section, and therefore that the Trika is older than the lineages that transmit it.
It is not the only text to make that claim. The Parātrīśikā — the short scripture on which Abhinavagupta wrote both a long Parātrīśikāvivaraṇa, one of the densest works in Sanskrit, and a brief Laghuvṛtti — is transmitted as a portion of the Rudrayāmala, and its colophons place it there. A title that stands behind both the Vijñāna Bhairava and the Parātrīśikā is standing behind a very large share of what the Trika actually put into practice.
Cited more than read
Abhinavagupta (c. 975–1025) quotes a Rudrayāmala. Jayaratha quotes a Rudrayāmala. So does the commentarial and digest literature that follows: Rāghavabhaṭṭa, whose Padārthādarśa on the Śāradātilaka was completed in 1494 and quotes tantras by the hundred, and the great Bengali Śākta compilers of the following century and a half — Kṛṣṇānanda Āgamavāgīśa, whose Bṛhat Tantrasāra became the working handbook of Śākta ritual in the east, Brahmānanda Giri of the Śāktānandataraṅgiṇī, Pūrṇānanda of the Śrītattvacintāmaṇi. Below them runs a long tail of stotra, kavaca and mantra literature down to the printed devotional books of the nineteenth century, much of it carrying colophons that assign a hymn or an armour to the Rudrayāmala.
The difficulty is that the passages so attributed very largely cannot be located in the Uttara Tantra that now circulates under the name — and in many cases the attributions of two different authors cannot be reconciled with each other either. The chain from citation to page is broken, and it broke early. Manuscript catalogues compound the impression rather than resolving it: the great Sanskrit bibliographical surveys, the New Catalogus Catalogorum among them, record numerous separate items under Rudrayāmala titles — a paṭala here, a stotra or a kavaca there — which are plainly not chapters of one book.
What the printed Uttara Tantra actually is
The work that has been printed repeatedly at Calcutta and Varanasi since the later nineteenth century is the Rudrayāmala Uttara Tantra, the "latter" Rudrayāmala, and it is a substantial Śākta compendium in its own right: the extraction of mantras from the syllabary by coded rule, the channels and centres of the subtle body, the raising of kuṇḍalinī, long stretches on yoga and observance, and the goddess in her many forms.
Its affiliations are not those of a tenth-century Kashmirian scripture. Its presiding goddess is Tārā, and its theology is that of the Mahāvidyās, the eastern Śākta cult of the ten great goddesses — a formation of the second millennium which cannot be projected back onto the early Vidyāpīṭha. It carries the well-known story of Vasiṣṭha, who fails to propitiate Tārā by orthodox austerity, is directed to Mahācīna, and finds there a teaching conducted in wine and flesh and the company of women, which he must accept before he can succeed. This cīnācāra episode, the way of Mahācīna, is one of the tradition's own accounts of why a transgressive rite exists at all, and it is largely through this text that the story is known. What geography "Mahācīna" was meant to denote has been argued over since the early twentieth century — Tibet, China and the north-eastern borderlands have all been proposed — and the question is not settled.
The language, the cast of goddesses and the ritual assumptions place the work in eastern India and centuries after the Kashmirian citations. Estimates of its date differ and none is secure; few would put its present shape earlier than the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and portions of it are probably later still. It is a late compilation that took up a prestigious title — not the book Abhinavagupta had in front of him.
The scholarship that established this
The standard statement of the problem is in Teun Goudriaan and Sanjukta Gupta's Hindu Tantric and Śākta Literature (1981), the volume on this material in Jan Gonda's A History of Indian Literature. It sets out at length that the passages ascribed to a Rudrayāmala across the literature very largely cannot be located in the surviving Uttara Tantra, and concludes that the title has to be understood as designating a body of transmitted material rather than one fixed book.
That conclusion sits inside a wider account of how tantric canons work. Mark Dyczkowski's The Canon of the Śaivāgama and the Kubjikā Tantras (1988) collates the scriptural lists themselves — who lists what, in what order, and how the lists diverge — and shows how routinely a title in these canons names a stream of transmission rather than an object on a shelf. Sanderson's work on the Vidyāpīṭha supplies the other half: a classification of what does survive, against which claims about what does not can at least be measured.
The prudent reading that follows from all this is that "Rudrayāmala" names a body of material and a claim of descent. This is not unique — the same is true of several Purāṇa titles, and of more than one Āgama — but it is unusually pronounced here, because the title carried so much prestige that attaching a work to it was worth doing. Attribution in this literature is a claim about lineage and legitimacy before it is a bibliographical statement, and a tradition holding that its scriptures are fragments of an unbounded revelation has no difficulty with the idea that a teaching may be from the Rudrayāmala without being in any particular copy of it.
Why Rudra, and not Bhairava
The choice of name is worth a moment. Bhairava is the god of this stream, and the tantras of the sixty-four are Bhairava tantras; a Bhairavayāmala would have been the obvious title. Rudra is the older and Vedic-facing name — the god of the Ṛgvedic hymns to Rudra and of the Śatarudrīya, the litany of the hundred Rudras in the Taittirīya recension of the Yajurveda: fierce, ambivalent, and prior to the sectarian articulation of Śaivism into streams. A Rudrayāmala presents itself, by its title alone, as the pairing at the root of the Śaiva revelation rather than as one scripture within a division of it.
That is consistent with the way the text is used. Later authors cite it not for a doctrine peculiar to it but as a general authority — the place one appeals to when a practice needs to be shown as old. The name does part of the work the citation is meant to do, and it is doing that work in the Vijñāna Bhairava's opening verse as much as in a sixteenth-century Bengali digest.
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अथवा पद्मसूत्रेण लतां कुर्याद्विचक्षणः | अष्टादशाङ्गुलमितं नातिसूक्ष्मं प्रमाणवत्
athavā padmasūtreṇa latāṃ kuryādvicakṣaṇaḥ | aṣṭādaśāṅgulamitaṃ nātisūkṣmaṃ pramāṇavat
जित्वाधः सन्निवेश्याथ घर्षयेत् कामसुन्दर | तदा जित्वा स्वयं याति घर्षणेन पुनः पुनः
jitvādhaḥ sanniveśyātha gharṣayet kāmasundara | tadā jitvā svayaṃ yāti gharṣaṇena punaḥ punaḥ
पश्चाज्जित्वा क्रियां कुर्यात्तालुमूले निधाय च | क्रमेणामृतमाप्नोति जिह्वाधश्छेदने ध्रुवम्
paścājjitvā kriyāṃ kuryāttālumūle nidhāya ca | krameṇāmṛtamāpnoti jihvādhaśchedane dhruvam
सा स्यात्समरसप्राप्तिर्यदि मन्त्राक्षरं भजेत् | जीवब्रह्मबुद्धिमन्तास्तु तिष्ठन्ति निरञ्जने
sā syātsamarasaprāptiryadi mantrākṣaraṃ bhajet | jīvabrahmabuddhimantāstu tiṣṭhanti nirañjane
कूष्माण्डाकारदेही च ब्रह्मसाधनतत्परः | सदा समरसप्राप्तिरनायासेन लभ्यते
kūṣmāṇḍākāradehī ca brahmasādhanatatparaḥ | sadā samarasaprāptiranāyāsena labhyate
जले स्थले भूमिगर्ते शरीरं नापि नश्यति | अजरामरदेही स्याद् योगोऽयं योगिदुर्लभः
jale sthale bhūmigarte śarīraṃ nāpi naśyati | ajarāmaradehī syād yogo'yaṃ yogidurlabhaḥ
कायकल्पनमावक्ष्ये येन सिद्धपतिर्भवेत् | शृणुष्वैकमनाः शम्भो गृहस्थानां तु दुर्लभम्
kāyakalpanamāvakṣye yena siddhapatirbhavet | śṛṇuṣvaikamanāḥ śambho gṛhasthānāṃ tu durlabham
महारण्ये पद्मवने शीतले गन्धशोभिते | कायकल्पनमाकृत्य भावयेत् कण्ठपङ्कजम्
mahāraṇye padmavane śītale gandhaśobhite | kāyakalpanamākṛtya bhāvayet kaṇṭhapaṅkajam
उदारचित्तः सर्वत्र वैष्णवाचारतत्परः | पद्मे पद्मे स्वदेहस्य कल्पना च दले दले
udāracittaḥ sarvatra vaiṣṇavācāratatparaḥ | padme padme svadehasya kalpanā ca dale dale
क्रमशः कण्ठपद्मे च स्वीयदेहस्य कल्पना | क्रियते यदि योगेन्द्रैस्तदा देहस्य रक्षणम्
kramaśaḥ kaṇṭhapadme ca svīyadehasya kalpanā | kriyate yadi yogendraistadā dehasya rakṣaṇam
अन्यथा मृत्युवश्यः स्याद् योगभ्रष्टो भवेन्नरः | एवं क्रमेण सर्वत्र कुर्यात् कायस्य कल्पनम्
anyathā mṛtyuvaśyaḥ syād yogabhraṣṭo bhavennaraḥ | evaṃ krameṇa sarvatra kuryāt kāyasya kalpanam
जरामरणदुःखाद्यैर्मुच्यते मोहसङ्कटात् | अथान्यत् सम्प्रवक्ष्यामि कायकल्पनमेव तत्
jarāmaraṇaduḥkhādyairmucyate mohasaṅkaṭāt | athānyat sampravakṣyāmi kāyakalpanameva tat
नानापीठे त्वसाध्ये च चक्षुरिन्द्रियवजीते | मनोगम्ये स्थिरो भूत्वा स्वदेहमपि कल्पयेत्
nānāpīṭhe tvasādhye ca cakṣurindriyavajīte | manogamye sthiro bhūtvā svadehamapi kalpayet
वाराणस्यादिपीठे च महाज्वालामुखीपदे | कुरुक्षेत्रे प्रयागे च दक्षिणे द्वारकादिषु
vārāṇasyādipīṭhe ca mahājvālāmukhīpade | kurukṣetre prayāge ca dakṣiṇe dvārakādiṣu
हरिद्वारोदये तीर्थे मार्कण्डेये च कापिले | वृन्दावने गुह्यपीठे गङ्गायमुनयोस्तटे
haridvārodaye tīrthe mārkaṇḍeye ca kāpile | vṛndāvane guhyapīṭhe gaṅgāyamunayostaṭe
पुष्करे पृथिवीतीर्थे कायतीर्थे गयादिषु | कालकल्पनमाकृत्य श्रद्धावान् पूजयेत्परम्
puṣkare pṛthivītīrthe kāyatīrthe gayādiṣu | kālakalpanamākṛtya śraddhāvān pūjayetparam
सदाशिवं साकिनीशं शाकिनीयोगिनीगणैः | वेष्टितं परया भक्त्या ध्यात्वा देहं प्रकल्पयेत्
sadāśivaṃ sākinīśaṃ śākinīyoginīgaṇaiḥ | veṣṭitaṃ parayā bhaktyā dhyātvā dehaṃ prakalpayet
प्रकल्प्य स्वतनुं तत्र ततो देवस्य कल्पयेत् | येषां मनसि यद्वय्नं तद्धयानं कायकल्पनम्
prakalpya svatanuṃ tatra tato devasya kalpayet | yeṣāṃ manasi yadvaynaṃ taddhayānaṃ kāyakalpanam
एतत्कायकल्पनेन मौनी वाक्सिद्धिमाप्नुयात् | इदानीं कामदेवस्य मथनं शृणु भैरव
etatkāyakalpanena maunī vāksiddhimāpnuyāt | idānīṃ kāmadevasya mathanaṃ śṛṇu bhairava
कामदेवस्य मथनं सुखदं मोक्षदं परम् | यावद् बिन्दुः स्थिरो देहे तावन्मृत्युभयं कुतः
kāmadevasya mathanaṃ sukhadaṃ mokṣadaṃ param | yāvad binduḥ sthiro dehe tāvanmṛtyubhayaṃ kutaḥ
बिन्दुपाताद्भवेन्नाशस्ततो हि बिन्दुरक्षणम् | तत्तदौषधमावक्ष्ये येन बिन्दुः स्थिरो भवेत्
bindupātādbhavennāśastato hi bindurakṣaṇam | tattadauṣadhamāvakṣye yena binduḥ sthiro bhavet
नित्यं सेवनमाकुर्या देतेषां मूलमाहरन् | श्वेतापराजितामूलं सिद्धिमूलं ततः परम्
nityaṃ sevanamākuryā deteṣāṃ mūlamāharan | śvetāparājitāmūlaṃ siddhimūlaṃ tataḥ param
शतपणीमूलमेकं कदम्बमूलमेव च | श्वेतकुन्दपुष्पमूलं करवीरं तथाशितम्
śatapaṇīmūlamekaṃ kadambamūlameva ca | śvetakundapuṣpamūlaṃ karavīraṃ tathāśitam
कृष्णधुस्तूरमूलं तु सेफालीमूलमेव च | चितामूलं तथा शम्भो निर्गुण्डीमूलमाहरन्
kṛṣṇadhustūramūlaṃ tu sephālīmūlameva ca | citāmūlaṃ tathā śambho nirguṇḍīmūlamāharan
एकीकृत्य विधानेन रविवारेऽर्कमूलकैः | समभागेन योगेन्द्र चूर्णीकृत्य पृथक् पृथक्
ekīkṛtya vidhānena ravivāre'rkamūlakaiḥ | samabhāgena yogendra cūrṇīkṛtya pṛthak pṛthak
शुक्रवारे च पूर्वाह्णे मिश्रं कुर्याद्दनत्रयम् | षड्रात्रि शोधयेत् काममुद्राभिर्वामदेवताः
śukravāre ca pūrvāhṇe miśraṃ kuryāddanatrayam | ṣaḍrātri śodhayet kāmamudrābhirvāmadevatāḥ
मध्यमाङ्गुलिमुत्तोल्य दक्षिणेनापि मुष्टिना | धृत्वा च शोधयेदादौ द्रव्यमूलानि साधकः
madhyamāṅgulimuttolya dakṣiṇenāpi muṣṭinā | dhṛtvā ca śodhayedādau dravyamūlāni sādhakaḥ
विजयाचूर्णयोगेन पिबेच्चूर्णं द्वितोलकम् | अर्धतोलकमुनैक्यं विजयाः सार्धतोलकाः
vijayācūrṇayogena pibeccūrṇaṃ dvitolakam | ardhatolakamunaikyaṃ vijayāḥ sārdhatolakāḥ
मिश्रीकृत्य विधानेऽपि तत्तत्कुजदिने शुभे | एतत्प्रभक्षणेनैव मदनं वशमानयेत्
miśrīkṛtya vidhāne'pi tattatkujadine śubhe | etatprabhakṣaṇenaiva madanaṃ vaśamānayet
यदा मनसि आयाति पुष्पधन्वा महाबली | तदा तं पूजयित्वा च कामदेवं निवारयेत्
yadā manasi āyāti puṣpadhanvā mahābalī | tadā taṃ pūjayitvā ca kāmadevaṃ nivārayet
इति कामस्य मथनं देहे व्यवस्थितं शृणु | अङ्गुष्ठगुल्फजानूरुसिमनीलिङ्गनाभिषु
iti kāmasya mathanaṃ dehe vyavasthitaṃ śṛṇu | aṅguṣṭhagulphajānūrusimanīliṅganābhiṣu
हृद्ग्रीवाकण्ठदेशेषु लम्बिकायां तथा नसि | भ्रूमध्ये मस्तके र्मूध्नि वाय्वाकाशप्रियालये
hṛdgrīvākaṇṭhadeśeṣu lambikāyāṃ tathā nasi | bhrūmadhye mastake rmūdhni vāyvākāśapriyālaye
वायुरूपं स्वदेहं तु स्थापयित्वा मनुं जपेत् | कुम्भकप्राणयोगेन निजदेहव्यवस्थितिः
vāyurūpaṃ svadehaṃ tu sthāpayitvā manuṃ japet | kumbhakaprāṇayogena nijadehavyavasthitiḥ
कण्ठाम्भोजे स्थिरो यो हि तं जनं शृणु भैरव | योगारम्भावधिर्यो हि स्त्रीसंसर्गं विवर्जयेत्
kaṇṭhāmbhoje sthiro yo hi taṃ janaṃ śṛṇu bhairava | yogārambhāvadhiryo hi strīsaṃsargaṃ vivarjayet
मातॄणां गमनं नास्ति यस्य स कण्ठसंस्थितः | नित्यं करोति योगं यो धर्मात्मा स्थिरचेतसा
mātṝṇāṃ gamanaṃ nāsti yasya sa kaṇṭhasaṃsthitaḥ | nityaṃ karoti yogaṃ yo dharmātmā sthiracetasā
स एव कण्ठपद्मे च स्थिरो भवति निश्चितम् | भावज्ञानी च यो विद्वान् तं विदामि दयार्णव
sa eva kaṇṭhapadme ca sthiro bhavati niścitam | bhāvajñānī ca yo vidvān taṃ vidāmi dayārṇava
कुण्डलीस्पर्शमात्रेण तन्मयो जायते क्षणात् | सर्व देवे परं भावं कृत्वा ज्ञानेन पूजयेत्
kuṇḍalīsparśamātreṇa tanmayo jāyate kṣaṇāt | sarva deve paraṃ bhāvaṃ kṛtvā jñānena pūjayet
सर्वपीठे स्थिरो भूत्वा ज्ञानात्मा परिपूजयेत् | क्रमेण कण्ठभेदः स्याद् योगी भवति सत्वरम्
sarvapīṭhe sthiro bhūtvā jñānātmā paripūjayet | krameṇa kaṇṭhabhedaḥ syād yogī bhavati satvaram
धनं धान्यं धरां धर्मं कीतीमायुर्यशः श्रियम् | तुरगान् दन्तिनः पुत्रान् लोकान् सर्वस्वस्वोदयम्
dhanaṃ dhānyaṃ dharāṃ dharmaṃ kītīmāyuryaśaḥ śriyam | turagān dantinaḥ putrān lokān sarvasvasvodayam
एतज्ज्ञानप्रसादेन लभ्यते परमेश्वरम्
etajjñānaprasādena labhyate parameśvaram
ज्ञात्वा योगेन्द्रचक्रं त्रिभुवनविवरध्वान्तजाल प्रकाशं | मूलाम्भोजे रसाख्ये दशदलविमले हृत्स्वपद्मे विलासम् | कण्ठाम्भोजे मनोज्ञे द्विदलस्वकमले भावयन्तं सुरेन्द्रैः | श्वेताम्भोजे परेशं निरवधिगगनं पूजये भावयामि
jñātvā yogendracakraṃ tribhuvanavivaradhvāntajāla prakāśaṃ | mūlāmbhoje rasākhye daśadalavimale hṛtsvapadme vilāsam | kaṇṭhāmbhoje manojñe dvidalasvakamale bhāvayantaṃ surendraiḥ | śvetāmbhoje pareśaṃ niravadhigaganaṃ pūjaye bhāvayāmi
अथ कान्त प्रवक्ष्यामि समुदायफलोदयम् | कण्ठाम्भोजस्य वर्णानां ध्यानं मन्त्रं शृणु प्रभो
atha kānta pravakṣyāmi samudāyaphalodayam | kaṇṭhāmbhojasya varṇānāṃ dhyānaṃ mantraṃ śṛṇu prabho
शाकिनीसहितं नित्यं पूजयित्वा सदाशिवम् | मूढोऽपि योगिनां श्रेष्ठः किमन्ये ध्यानयोगिनः
śākinīsahitaṃ nityaṃ pūjayitvā sadāśivam | mūḍho'pi yogināṃ śreṣṭhaḥ kimanye dhyānayoginaḥ
ध्यात्वा सम्पूजयेद्यस्तु सोऽभीष्टं फलमाप्नुयात् | ततो ध्यानं प्रवक्ष्यामि वीरनाथ शृणु प्रभो
dhyātvā sampūjayedyastu so'bhīṣṭaṃ phalamāpnuyāt | tato dhyānaṃ pravakṣyāmi vīranātha śṛṇu prabho
आदौ श्रीशाकिनीध्यानं पश्चाद् ध्यानं सदाशिवे | द्वयोरभेदबुद्ध्या च कामजेता स्वयं भवेत्
ādau śrīśākinīdhyānaṃ paścād dhyānaṃ sadāśive | dvayorabhedabuddhyā ca kāmajetā svayaṃ bhavet
वन्दे नित्यां सुशीलां त्रिभुवनवरदां शाकिनीं पीतवस्त्रां | वेदाद्यां वेदमातां सुखमयललितां वेदहस्तोज्ज्वलाङ्गीम् | ध्याये पीयूषधारामलघटसुधया स्निग्धदेहां हसन्तीं | मायां शम्भोर्ललाटे विधुकिरणकरां श्रीसदानन्दयुक्ताम्
vande nityāṃ suśīlāṃ tribhuvanavaradāṃ śākinīṃ pītavastrāṃ | vedādyāṃ vedamātāṃ sukhamayalalitāṃ vedahastojjvalāṅgīm | dhyāye pīyūṣadhārāmalaghaṭasudhayā snigdhadehāṃ hasantīṃ | māyāṃ śambhorlalāṭe vidhukiraṇakarāṃ śrīsadānandayuktām
अम्भोजास्त्रादिमुद्रासिवरदजटा धारयन्तीं करालं | श्यामां पीनस्तनाढ्यां त्रिनयनकमलां प्रेतलिङ्गासनस्थाम् | सर्वाङ्गालङ्कृतां श्रीं विधुशतवदनाम्भोजशोभां वहन्तीं | शम्भोरानन्दकत्रीं चरमगुणपदां स्थूलसूक्ष्मस्वरूपाम्
ambhojāstrādimudrāsivaradajaṭā dhārayantīṃ karālaṃ | śyāmāṃ pīnastanāḍhyāṃ trinayanakamalāṃ pretaliṅgāsanasthām | sarvāṅgālaṅkṛtāṃ śrīṃ vidhuśatavadanāmbhojaśobhāṃ vahantīṃ | śambhorānandakatrīṃ caramaguṇapadāṃ sthūlasūkṣmasvarūpām
एवं ध्यायेन्महायोगी स्थूलसूक्ष्मस्वरूपिणीम् | अभेद्यभेदकरणीं शङ्कर प्रेमवल्लभ
evaṃ dhyāyenmahāyogī sthūlasūkṣmasvarūpiṇīm | abhedyabhedakaraṇīṃ śaṅkara premavallabha
या विद्या वाग्भवाढ्या हरिवधुकमला केवले निष्फलन्ते | मायालक्ष्मीस्त्रिकूटं शशिमुखितदधः शाकिनी क्षेत्रपालम् | वक्षद्वन्द्वं त्रिकूटं वधुमधरमिवासिद्धिमिष्टां विधेहि | स्वाहान्तोऽयं महेशत्रिभुवनभविकाह्लादहेतोः प्रकाशः
yā vidyā vāgbhavāḍhyā harivadhukamalā kevale niṣphalante | māyālakṣmīstrikūṭaṃ śaśimukhitadadhaḥ śākinī kṣetrapālam | vakṣadvandvaṃ trikūṭaṃ vadhumadharamivāsiddhimiṣṭāṃ vidhehi | svāhānto'yaṃ maheśatribhuvanabhavikāhlādahetoḥ prakāśaḥ
प्रणवं पूर्वमुद्धृत्य वाग्भवं तदनन्तरम् | शाकिनी त्वं तदन्ते तु मम दोषान् विनाशय
praṇavaṃ pūrvamuddhṛtya vāgbhavaṃ tadanantaram | śākinī tvaṃ tadante tu mama doṣān vināśaya
युगलं वह्निकान्तां च मन्त्रार्थाः सारदाः स्मृताः | कामराजं समुद्धृत्य हिरण्याक्षि सनातनि
yugalaṃ vahnikāntāṃ ca mantrārthāḥ sāradāḥ smṛtāḥ | kāmarājaṃ samuddhṛtya hiraṇyākṣi sanātani
शाकिन्यन्ते महामाये मायावह्निश्रिया युतम् | एषा मन्त्रात्मिका विद्या कण्ठाम्भोजप्रकाशिनी
śākinyante mahāmāye māyāvahniśriyā yutam | eṣā mantrātmikā vidyā kaṇṭhāmbhojaprakāśinī
शाकम्भरी महाविद्या तस्य वामे विभाति च | तस्य मन्त्रं प्रवक्ष्यामि ज्ञात्वैव योगवित् प्रभुः
śākambharī mahāvidyā tasya vāme vibhāti ca | tasya mantraṃ pravakṣyāmi jñātvaiva yogavit prabhuḥ
महामन्त्रस्य माहात्म्यं कथितुं नैव शक्यते | भावमात्रेण सिद्धिः स्यात् किं पुनर्मोक्षसाधनम्
mahāmantrasya māhātmyaṃ kathituṃ naiva śakyate | bhāvamātreṇa siddhiḥ syāt kiṃ punarmokṣasādhanam
विद्यां कामकलां विचित्रवसनां पद्मासनस्थां शिवां | कामाख्यां सकलान् स्वरान् त्रिजगतां शाकैर्महायोगिनी | नित्यं या परिपाल्यते भगवतीं शाकम्भरीं तां भजे | सा योगाधिप रक्षका निशि दिशि श्रीकण्ठपद्मे प्रभा
vidyāṃ kāmakalāṃ vicitravasanāṃ padmāsanasthāṃ śivāṃ | kāmākhyāṃ sakalān svarān trijagatāṃ śākairmahāyoginī | nityaṃ yā paripālyate bhagavatīṃ śākambharīṃ tāṃ bhaje | sā yogādhipa rakṣakā niśi diśi śrīkaṇṭhapadme prabhā
अद्यापि प्रियकण्ठपद्मनिकरे सम्भाति शाकम्भरी | विद्यावाक्कमलायुतं स्मितमुखि प्रान्ते च शाकम्भरि | वह्निर्वारुणवायुबीजमनलद्वन्द्वं हि वक्षद्वयं | वह्निप्रेमकलान्वितो मनुवरः साक्षाज्जगत्क्षोभकृत्
adyāpi priyakaṇṭhapadmanikare sambhāti śākambharī | vidyāvākkamalāyutaṃ smitamukhi prānte ca śākambhari | vahnirvāruṇavāyubījamanaladvandvaṃ hi vakṣadvayaṃ | vahnipremakalānvito manuvaraḥ sākṣājjagatkṣobhakṛt
शाकम्भरीं महामायां पूजयेद् द्वारदेवताम् | तदन्ते सर्वदेवाश्च शक्रादीन् परिपूजयेत्
śākambharīṃ mahāmāyāṃ pūjayed dvāradevatām | tadante sarvadevāśca śakrādīn paripūjayet
ध्यात्वा च शाकिनीं देवीं शाकम्भर्याश्च दक्षिणे | पूजयेत् परया भक्त्या पूर्वोक्तविधिना प्रभो
dhyātvā ca śākinīṃ devīṃ śākambharyāśca dakṣiṇe | pūjayet parayā bhaktyā pūrvoktavidhinā prabho
शाकम्भरीं त्रिनयनां सूर्येन्दुवह्नियोजिताम् | रक्तपद्मस्थितां श्यामां वेदबाहुश्रियोज्ज्वलाम्
śākambharīṃ trinayanāṃ sūryenduvahniyojitām | raktapadmasthitāṃ śyāmāṃ vedabāhuśriyojjvalām
वराभयकरां खड्गकपालकमलान्विताम् | नानालङ्कारशोभाङ्गी मुक्तकुन्तलभूषिताम्
varābhayakarāṃ khaḍgakapālakamalānvitām | nānālaṅkāraśobhāṅgī muktakuntalabhūṣitām