MEDITATION
Sri Lalitha Sahasranama: 1000-name lyrics praising the beauty of Goddess Shakti
Ambika by Raja Ravi Varma
By Serg Childed
Lalita Sahasranama is a Hindu chant dedicated to the Divine Mother known as Shakti who manifests as the triple goddesses Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati. All three unite with the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva to personify the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction respectively.
The chant belongs to the literary genre stotra—meaning a hymn of praise—in which religious texts are presented in the form of poems in order to be easily sung in the melodic traditions of Indian classical music.
The word sahasranāma can be translated from Sanskrit as a thousand names, while the term itself is usually applied to sacred texts containing names, epithets, and various attributes of deities described by the Dharmic religions of the Indian subcontinent, namely Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.
Listen to Sri Lalitha Sahasranamam Stothram performed by Balamuralikrishna:
Known since at least the 5th century CE, Lalita Sahasranama stands out from the other thousand-names chants in that its text avoids auxiliary conjunctions, thus being the true enumeration of holy names. An essential part of the lyrics contains names praising the ideal beauty and physical perfection of Lalita, whose splendor is unmatched by any other celestial.
