The Dasha Mahavidya naming verse

This is the verse the whole set rests on. Where the Puranas that carry Mahavidya narratives never fix the membership, the Mundamala Tantra states it as a list, and every later enumeration is measured against this one. Three things in the wording repay attention. Shodashi — "the sixteen-year-old" — is Tripura Sundari, named here by her age rather than her name. Bagala is the short form of Bagalamukhi. And the verse calls the same ten both *mahavidya* and *siddhavidya*, which looks redundant until you notice that the Mundamala also grades them: *mahavidya* proper for Kali and Tara, *vidya* for the middle five, *siddhavidya* for Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamala. The closing line collapses the grades back into one set. The final pada varies between witnesses. Alongside *siddhavidyah prakirtitah* given here, *guptavidyah prakirtitah* — "declared the secret vidyas" — also circulates, and some printed copies reorder the goddesses within the second and third lines. The reading here is the one most widely reproduced; a reader comparing editions should expect to meet the variant. The sequence is not a ranking. The Kalikula reads the set downward from Kali and the Srikula upward to Tripura Sundari, so order shifts by lineage rather than by error.