Hymn to Bhavani
NOR father nor mother, nor friends nor brothers, Nor son nor daughter, nor servants nor master, Nor bride nor learning nor profession have I: Thou art the refuge, thou the sole refuge, O Bhavani! In this world, this shoreless ocean brimming with its dread suffering, I lie prostrate, full of desire, full of greed, full of delusion; For ever entangled I am in the meshes of Wrong movements: Thou art the refuge, thou the sole refuge, O Bhavani! I know neither benefaction nor meditation nor yoga, Nor do I know secret practices nor charms nor chants occult; I know not rites of worship, nor the process of renouncing: Thou art the refuge, thou the sole refuge, O Bhavani! I know not virtue, I know not pilgrimage, I know not liberation nor any annihilation either, I know not devotion nor even ascetic discipline, O Mother; Thou art the refuge, thou the sole refuge, O Bhavani! I am a wrong-doer, wrong company, wrong-witted, wrong servant, I have abandoned all customs of ancestors and I have embraced all wrong customs; To see wrong, to speak wrong I am always prone: Thou art the refuge, thou the sole refuge, O Bhavani!
Lord of the people, Lord of the Divine Mother, the great Lord Himself, the Lord of the Gods, Lord of the day, Lord of the night, I know none else among the Gods for everlasting shelter; Thou art the refuge, thou the sole refuge, O Bhavani! In strife and gloom, in error, in other lands, In water and fire, in the
mountains and among enemies, In forest-ranges I seek my
shelter, protect me always: Thou art the refuge, thou
the sole refuge, O Bhavani! I have no protector, I am destitute, I am stricken with age and ailings, Wholly dispossessed, lowliest, ever reduced to an inert figure; I have entered into calamity, thoroughly undone: Thou art the refuge, thou the sole refuge, O Bhavani!
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