Hymn to Durga

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Hymn to Durga

A Poetic Invocation

Courtesy — Priti Ghosh

O Daughter from mountain, that divine peak
We thy children our intent do speak,
Establish us firm by body, breath and mind
Aid our venture, in us by effort to Thee find.

O Resolve, of those by senses restrained
By will insistent may our members be trained .
A time of preparation, a phase of cleansing
Arm our being for arduous climb that is coming.

O Moon-Sliver, dawning upon mind’s night 
Thou art the succour we drink by sight.
Goddess, Mother to our famished self
Nourish us Thy children in this grim gulf.

O Maternal-Warmth, Creatrix, life fostering
Manifest within us, our new birth beginning.
Partly made, unbaked our self of clay
Fashion us firm by Thy fiery ray.

O Mother of Speared-One, bring Thy battling
Forces armed with fearsome war-cry ringing.
Range through our being and scour the foe
May we shed all crookedness from head to toe.

O Mother, Veil-Piercer, by Thy light shear
Our blindness obscure and rid our fear.
March across every forbidding realm
None would obstruct forces with Thee at the helm.

O Mother, Night’s Womb, doom does exist
And abyss it’s share of time to Thee can insist.
Thou art the Nether-Ocean, dreaming our world
All does linger only because Thou dost hold.

O Mother, Pristine-Peace, Thou art silence
The foundation true of spiritual release.
Born now to Thy wide ranging freer day
We are moored beyond earth and its clay.

O Mother, Siddhi-Bestower, now Thou dost shower
On us Thy bountiful light, joy and power.
Arrive Thy kine, released from hidden kens 
By praising chant to Thee our divine birth does commence.

PS: Our offering to the Divine Mother, on the Day of Victory following Navratri, 19 September 2018.

Author’s Note: The Navratri, or Nine Nights, festival lays out a clear taxonomy for worshippers of Shakti to follow. Almost like a clue on how She may be invoked, what passage is to be expected and what the end result would be. In this poetic hymn, we invoke each facet of the Divine Mother and affirm to our external understanding the specific aid we aspire for. Devotion and its effects do not follow a boolean logic of all or nothing. Devotion can and must be detailed in its aspiration, and when this tendency is raised to a certain pitch, it turns into a Vidyā, a Higher Knowledge & Realisation, of the Divine Mother and Her workings with the World and us. And as Sri Aurobindo indicates in his Synthesis of Yoga/The Life Divine, such a devotion turns a Bhakta into a Gnani, or the Devotee into a Seer, for now the heart of devotion and the mind of knowledge have been raised to an acme and fused together for a fuller being.