Stotra · स्तोत्रMantra

Bhavani Ashtakam — opening verse

Shankara's verse of total dependence: you alone are my refuge, Bhavani.

Bhavani Ashtakam 1edition

Sanskrit · संस्कृत

न तातो न माता न बन्धुर्न दाता न पुत्रो न पुत्री न भृत्यो न भर्ता । न जाया न विद्या न वृत्तिर्ममैव गतिस्त्वं गतिस्त्वं त्वमेका भवानि ॥

na tāto na mātā na bandhurna dātā na putro na putrī na bhṛtyo na bhartā । na jāyā na vidyā na vṛttirmamaiva gatistvaṃ gatistvaṃ tvamekā bhavāni ॥

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Meaning

Not father, not mother, not kinsman, not benefactor; not son, not daughter, not servant, not husband; not wife, not learning, not livelihood is mine — you are my refuge, you are my refuge, you alone, Bhavani.

This rendering is by a DharmSetu editor, not a quotation from a published translation. Compare with the public-domain translation.

A Hindi meaning has not been written for this mantra yet. Hindi is authored by a named editor rather than machine-translated, so it arrives more slowly.

How to recite

Bhujangaprayata: four padas of twelve syllables, each pada four ya-ganas — light, heavy, heavy, repeated. The metre is named for the gliding motion of a serpent and the repeated न gives it exactly that. वृत्तिर्ममैव is vṛttiḥ + mama + eva, with the visarga becoming r and the last two words fusing to mamaiva. भवानि is a vocative — bhavāni, addressed to her — and not the verb form it looks like to a Hindi ear.

Repetitions: 1 · 3
Time: sandhya

Pronunciation key — sounds commonly got wrong

ट ठ ड ढ ण · ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ: Retroflex — the tongue curls back and touches the roof of the mouth. Distinct from the dental त थ द ध न, where the tongue touches the teeth.
श ष स · ś ṣ s: Three different sounds: ś as in “shy”, ṣ retroflex and further back, s plain. Collapsing them changes words.
ः · ḥ (visarga): A soft outward breath echoing the preceding vowel — not a hard “ha”.
ं · ṃ (anusvara): Nasalises the vowel; the closing sound follows the consonant that comes next.
Long vs short vowels — a / ā, i / ī, u / ū: Vowel length is meaningful in Sanskrit. Hold the macron vowels roughly twice as long.
Aspirated consonants — kh, gh, ch, th, dh, ph, bh: A distinct puff of breath. ph is an aspirated p, never an English “f”.

Word by word

नna: not(indecl.)MW1899-CDSL p.523
तातःtātaḥ: father(nom. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.441
माताmātā: mother(nom. sg. f.)MW1899-CDSL p.804
बन्धुःbandhuḥ: kinsman(nom. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.721
दाताdātā: giver, benefactor(nom. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.474
पुत्रःputraḥ: son(nom. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.632
पुत्रीputrī: daughter

Context

Eleven negations, then the turn. The verse lists every relationship and resource a person in classical Indian society could be held up by — parents, kin, patron, children, servants, spouse, education, income — and strikes each one out before arriving at what remains. The force of it is in the ordering. It does not begin with philosophy; it begins with father and mother, and works outward through the household and then into the abstractions, learning and livelihood, that a person might think are more securely their own. Only when the list is exhausted does gatis tvaṃ arrive, repeated twice, as though the first time were not enough. The refrain closes all eight verses of the hymn, so it is the line reciters know even when they do not know the rest.

Shadanga — the six limbs

The traditional analytic frame for a mantra. Blank limbs are simply not recorded for this text.

chhanda: Bhujangaprayata
devata: Bhavani

Recited at / traditionally recited for

Dhyana (meditation)Peace (shanti)Kshama prarthana (asking pardon)

Classified as Stotra — Devotional hymn literature — praise poetry rather than a Vedic formula. Basis for this classification.

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