Bhavani Ashtakam — opening verse

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.