Stotra · स्तोत्रMantra

Kanakadhara Stotra — opening verse

Shankara's opening verse to Lakshmi, on the sidelong glance that rests on Vishnu.

Kanakadhara Stotra 1edition

Sanskrit · संस्कृत

अङ्गं हरेः पुलकभूषणमाश्रयन्ती भृङ्गाङ्गनेव मुकुलाभरणं तमालम् । अङ्गीकृताखिलविभूतिरपाङ्गलीला माङ्गल्यदाऽस्तु मम मङ्गलदेवतायाः ॥

aṅgaṃ hareḥ pulakabhūṣaṇamāśrayantī bhṛṅgāṅganeva mukulābharaṇaṃ tamālam । aṅgīkṛtākhilavibhūtirapāṅgalīlā māṅgalyadā'stu mama maṅgaladevatāyāḥ ॥

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Meaning

Resting on the body of Hari, which is adorned with thrilled hair, as a female bee rests on a tamala tree adorned with buds — may the sidelong play of the glance of the goddess of good fortune, which has taken all splendour into itself, bring auspiciousness to me.

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

Vasantatilaka: four padas of fourteen syllables. It is a long, slow metre and the verse should not be hurried. The recurring ङ् is a velar nasal, the ng of English 'singer' and not that of 'finger' — there is no hard g after it. भृङ्गाङ्गना opens with bhṛ, an aspirated bh followed by vocalic ṛ, which is a single syllable and not bhri. माङ्गल्यदाऽस्तु is māṅgalyadā + astu with the initial a elided, marked by the avagraha.

Repetitions: 1 · 3
Time: sunrise

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

अङ्गम्aṅgam: the body(acc. sg. n.)MW1899-CDSL p.7
हरेःhareḥ: of Hari, Vishnu(gen. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.1289
पुलकभूषणम्pulakabhūṣaṇam: adorned with hair standing on end(acc. sg. n.)
आश्रयन्तीāśrayantī: resting upon, taking refuge in(nom. sg. f. pres. part.)MW1899-CDSL p.158
भृङ्गाङ्गनाbhṛṅgāṅganā: a female bee(nom. sg. f.)
मुकुलाभरणम्mukulābharaṇam: adorned with buds(acc. sg. n.)
तमालम्tamālam: the tamala tree(acc. sg.)

Context

The verse is one sentence with a long suspended subject, and the subject is not Lakshmi. It is her apāṅga-līlā — the play of her sidelong glance. Shankara asks not for the goddess's presence but for the movement of her eyes to happen to fall on him, which is a smaller and stranger request than most stotras make. The sound design is the thing to notice. Every pada opens on a nasal-plus-g cluster — aṅgaṃ, bhṛṅgāṅganeva, aṅgīkṛtākhila, māṅgalyadāstu — and the final line packs māṅgalya, maṅgala and mama together. Read aloud, the verse hums before it means anything. The traditional account has Shankara reciting this at the door of a poor household in Kerala, after which a shower of golden amalaka fruit fell — kanaka-dhārā, 'a stream of gold', which is how the hymn got its name.

Shadanga — the six limbs

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

chhanda: Vasantatilaka
devata: Lakshmi

Recited at / traditionally recited for

Abundance (samriddhi)Dhyana (meditation)

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

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