Devishataka 78_53

78_53

(A pun in Sanskrit and Śaurasenī Prakrit.)
There, first the meaning of the Sanskrit words: O Devī, giver of life, in overcoming guilt-bearing enemies—those foes whose misdeeds are evident—may your two states of existence, namely your being and your brilliance, possess an abundance of manifest power! That is to say: just as guilty enemies are conquered by people, so too your presence and splendor are visibly seen. Moreover, may these two states of existence grant a safe crossing over the ocean of existence. The sense is: when you are present, or by your majesty, one crosses over the ocean of transmigratory life. And may they bestow the harmonious word, which does not decay; or may they bestow the Word-Brahman, which abides equally and universally through eternal presence throughout the fourteenfold realm of beings, from Brahmā down to a clump of grass. And that is a raft for crossing over the ocean of the transmigratory cycle. And so says the Ṛgvedic scripture: “The verses abide in the supreme, imperishable ether wherein all the gods have taken their seat. He who does not know this, what will he do with the verse? Those who know it sit together here.” Now the meaning in the Śaurasenī tongue: O Gaurī, in the worlds, in the three worlds, your power of asceticism is ever endowed with a wealth of essence firm as a thunderbolt—a attainment intensely firm like a thunderbolt, whose acquisition is exceedingly durable. As is said by Amarasiṃha: “*Hrādinī*, *vajra*, *kuliśa*, *bhidura*, *pavi*, *śatakoṭi*, *svaru*, *śamba*, *dambholi*, *aśani* in both genders.” The meaning is that the power of your asceticism never fails. What kind of Gaurī? Delightful in purity, intent on conquering the fluctuations of the mind. In what kind of purity? In that which is foremost in ultimate beatitude. Moreover, O Gaurī, bowed down to by those who have attained complete calmness, reverenced by those of consummate tranquillity who have conquered the turbulent surges of the mind! The sense is that seekers of liberation bow down to you, since the conquest of the mind is indeed liberation itself. As it is said: “For the mind alone, defiled by afflictions like passion, is the transmigratory cycle; that very mind, freed from them, is proclaimed to be liberation.” || 78