“A Hymn to Śrī”: The Śrī Stuti of Śrī Vedānta Deśika

It is said that Śrī Vedānta Deśika composed his famous Śrī Stuti when a pious but poor young man came to him for help: he wanted to get married, and needed some money to convince his father-in-law-to-be that he was worth it. No sooner had Śrī Vedānta Deśika finished reciting the Śrī Stuti than a shower of gold coins poured down from the heavens, making the young man rich and making Śrī Vedānta Deśika even more famous than he had been.

What follows is a first draft at translating this most beautiful of hymns praising the Goddess Śrī. All that is good in this comes from the beauty of the original; whatever isn’t, stems from my own deficiencies. May I be forgiven my myriad faults!

|| Śrīḥ ||

The noble Veṅkaṭanātha,

        blessed with śrī,

        saffron-maned lion among poets and philosophers,

        teacher of the Vedānta—

may he be enshrined in my heart forever!

|| 1 || 

Magnificent beyond all measure,

Auspicious even to all things auspicious,

Resting on the chest of Madhu’s conqueror

Ornamenting it by Her lustre,

Felicity personified for all people

        who seek material and spiritual prosperity—

        to you, o Śrī, do I,

                who have no other refuge,

        surrender!

|| 2 ||

Goddess:

You manifest Yourself

        in the Ocean

        and in the sacrifice;

You rest

        amidst clusters of lotuses

        and upon Viṣṇu’s chest;

Your domain extends

        over the entire Cosmos

        and over the Supreme Abode, Vaikuṇṭha;

How then can we feeble-minded folk praise 

        You,

        of boundless virtues?

|| 3 ||

Praised by all embodied beings,

You grant praiseworthiness to all;

and it is You I, otherwise shelterless, seek to praise.

May my undertakings be successful;

May I be celebrated by the whole world,

For who does not seek to praise Your feet and attain glory?

|| 4 ||

Lotus-lady,

By a simple act of His conception,

All of these creatures—moving and still—

        whose very soul He is

participate in the cycle of birth, sustenance, and destruction.

It’s His indescribable glory towards which yogīs direct their single-pointed attention—

and all of that indescribable glory comes from

        Your full effulgence

                shining from His chest marked red by the dye on Your soles! 

|| 5 ||

Goddess,

You and Viṣṇu form a pair,

        inseparable even for a single breath,

        eternally bound to each other,

        constantly pointing to each other,

Your virtues limitless.

Śeṣa;

the hearts of the stainless;

the crowns of the Vedas—

        these are Your favorite couches for rest and relaxation!

|| 6 ||

Mother,

You Two alone are the recipients

of the sacrificial offerings made by the Soul;

and this is entirely natural to You,

        without even the slightest hint of any sort of additional entity,

because You Two are each wholly complete in each other.

The magnificence of You and Your Husband

        which the Vedas have eternally sought to describe

admits of no limit,

making our hearts delight in joy!

|| 7 ||

All the world’s a board-game,

        its positions colored by the Three Guṇas,

        its pieces the gods like Brahmā and Śiva;

And You,

        Life-breath to the Lord of All,

        facing across from Him, 

                the board between You Two,

        roll the dice and

        move the pieces in perfect harmony,

while the Vedas and Your devotees look on in awe.

|| 8 ||

You are

        the Supreme Goddess to all beings

        tightly attached to Mukunda

        named by the eternal Vedic śruti texts as 

                Lakṣmī—the Beautiful One,

                Padmā—the Lotus Lady,

                Daughter of the Ocean,

                Viṣṇu’s beloved,

                Indirā—the Powerful,

and those who ceaselessly repeat these names

        will cease to be trapped

        inside the ceaselessly spinning tornado of evil.

|| 9 ||

Some call You alone Ruler of All;

Others, Your Beloved Lord.

Who cares for them—

        immersed in petty debates,

        first one side winning, then the other?

Lord Hari does everything He does solely for Your pleasure;

and it’s You Two, the Divine Duo,

        the real center of the śruti,

whom we worship.

|| 10 ||

You’re famous

as the beloved wife of Viṣṇu,

        always entirely focused upon soothing sorrowful souls.

You partake in all of His acts,

        always entirely in accord with Him.

You accompany Him in all of His incarnations,

        always taking a form appropriate to Him

        just as sweetness accompanies the waves of the Ocean of the Milk,

                leaping up to lofty heights.

|| 11 ||

Hari’s emerald-green body gets its beauty from

Your Primal Form—

        slender,

        curvaceous,

        pure melted gold,

        an Ocean of Bliss

                in which You eternally manifest Yourself,

                taking and leaving various forms

                like waves tossed up by the force of Your Will.

|| 12 ||

Sarasvatī—whose very form is made up of Speech

        which pervades the whole cosmos;

Pārvatī—whose bowed eyebrows alone turned Śiva

                (who used the mountain Meru as his bow)

        into a devotee of Eros, with a flowery bow;

Śacī—who is eternally the sole focus 

        of all of Indra’s hundreds of eyes—

Lotus Lady!—

All of these great goddesses are perfected

        —nay! sustained—

by tiny slivers of Your power.

|| 13 ||

Seated before Your Lord on a sacred lotus-platform,

You rose from the flood of nectar

        produced by His churning the Ocean of Milk,

Clouds that wouldn’t rain water showered unending streams of flowers 

        almost concealing the whole world;

The elephant-lords sprinkled water on You from golden consecrated pots.

|| 14 ||

Seeing You,

        born alongside divine ambrosia,

        resting on Viṣṇu’s chest,

The gods and their wives,

        stricken by Durvāsas’ curse,

threw themselves at Your mercy.

And through just Your glances,

they received these Three Worlds,

        thus obtaining eternal, unshakeable, limitless wealth.

|| 15 ||

Whithersoever Your side-glances go,

        lotuses opening up with the first rays of dawn,

        promising to wipe away the sufferings of Your devotees,

        pouring down showers of ambrosia like dark blue monsoon clouds,

Thither rush torrents of wealth

        tripping over one another in their rush to be first!

|| 16 ||

For those people,

        their minds firmly intent on beginning Yoga through action,

        who, wishing to attain the highest Dharma—

                single-pointed meditation on You and Him—

        first come to You to acquire wealth:

From the earth,

From the sky,

From the ocean,

From the palace of Kubera, Celestial Treasurer—

        stream upon unending stream 

                of their desired riches

        pours forth unceasingly!

|| 17 ||

Lotus-lady,

People desiring all felicities

bear in their consciousness Your Two Feet,

                the secret crown-jewel of the Vedas.

Parasols shade their blessed heads,

Flywhisks adorn their sides,

Fragrant flowers garland them,

Encomia to them resound in their ears,

        as they range over the whole Universe.

|| 18 ||

To acquire all felicities,

To conquer all malignities,

To dispel all magnitudes of sins,

To abandon beginningless ignorance—

Mother! Beloved of Viṣṇu!

People of stainless characters rely upon Your infinite Compassion,

        within whose infinitely capacious boundaries are encompassed all things:

        from a single blade of grass to the Creator Brahmā.

|| 19 ||

The virtuous,

        desiring to worship You Two,

        regarding the whole material universe, 

                cloaked as it is in illusion,

        as nothing more than a blade of grass,

joyfully sustain the Vedic Dharma-bridge

        which can soothe breaches of right conduct

solely to please You and Viṣṇu.

|| 20 ||

I prostrate myself,

        O Goddess!

before the lotuses that are Your Feet

        ornamented by the garlands that adorn the heads of the gods’ wives

        a field for effecting the destruction of misfortune and the realization of felicity.

Those who incline their heads even slightly towards Your feet will surely,

        upon escaping their material bodies,

rejoice for eternity in Vāsudeva’s Heaven, 

        entirely free from darkness

—how lucky they are!

|| 21 ||

Mother!

Cool me down,

        as I am scorched and withered 

                without any escape

        in the terrifying heat of the Triple Fires,

instantaneously

with Your glances,

        stainless, sin-destroying,

        smearing thick, viscous motherly love

        continually manifesting Your compassion,

        akin to waves of ambrosia.

|| 22 ||

By Your Grace,

The black night of existential angst

vanishes, and 

our states of being—each a veritable Sun—

        overflow their boundaries

        overwhelmed by love for You and Hari.

Out of Your cooling, compassionate nature,

You’ve granted me, over and over, 

        infinite sequences of the greatest possible felicities.

What else can I ask You for?

|| 23 ||

O Lady,

You indeed are Mother, and Lord Vāsudeva Father,        

        to me

                who am the recipient of Your combined compassion

                who am dedicated to Your service by the gurus of old;

and still You shine,

        a smile illuminating Your face,

        asking me:

                “What else is dear to you?”

|| 24 ||

Most perfect treasure of all fortunes,

The apex of compassion,

Eternally delightful,

The crest-ornament made up of coral-tree flowers that adorns the Veda,

The divine wealth personified of Madhu’s conqueror—

        may She 

                the wish-fulfilling Kāmadhenu cow for all of existence

        reside forever in me!

|| 25 ||

Those who recite this song of praise

        dedicated to the Lady of the Lotus

                by Veṅkaṭeśa, whose devotion to Her has fully flowered,

                in order to destroy the stains of our fallen era

attain the highest levels of accomplishment in all skills,

and become Lords of All.

Salutations to

        the Lion among poets and philosophers,

                resplendent with illustrious auspicious virtues,

        the noble Veṅkaṭeśa

                endowed with śrī,

                teacher of the Vedānta!

|| Śrīḥ ||