दुर्गापञ्चरत्नम्

About this stotra

Five verses to Durgā composed by the Paramācārya of Kāñcī, Śrī Candraśekharendra Sarasvatī. Every verse ends with the same prayer, māṃ pāhi sarveśvari mokṣadātri: “protect me, Queen of all, Giver of liberation.” The hymn is woven from the Upaniṣads, above all the Śvetāśvatara:

• Verse 1 opens with Śvetāśvatara 1.3, where the seers, absorbed in meditation, saw the Devī, the power of the Lord, hidden by Her own guṇas.
• Verse 3 takes up Śvetāśvatara 6.8: Her supreme power is heard of as manifold, and Her knowledge, strength and action are natural to Her.
• Verse 4 reads devātma (“the self of the Lord”) as Śiva’s own self, following the Kūrma and Vāyu Purāṇas, and hails Her as the One who cuts the bonds of the soul.
• Verse 5 draws on the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, where Brahman is the “tail” and support of the bird-like self, and calls Her upadiṣṭa-gītā, the One who taught the Gītā.

The hymn came forth one afternoon at Tēnambākkam, near Kāñcī, where the Ācārya was staying. Seated by a pond, he called a young scholar for paper and pen and began uttering Sanskrit words one by one, sometimes giving the meaning and asking the scholar to find the word, until the lines formed this stuti. The scribe is remembered as Mullaivāsal Kṛṣṇamūrti Śāstrigaḷ, who would recount the day whenever he spoke of the Ācārya.

At upadiṣṭa-gītā the scholar hesitated: could one say that the Devī taught the Gītā? The Ācārya had the Gītā-bhāṣya brought and showed him Kṛṣṇa’s words brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham, “I am the abode of Brahman” (Gītā 14.27). Śaṅkara explains the “I” there as the Lord’s power, and since power and its possessor are not different (śakti-śaktimatoḥ abhedaḥ), the Gītā taught by Kṛṣṇa is equally Her teaching. The hymn later became widely known through M. S. Subbulakshmi’s rendering.