Stotra · स्तोत्रMantra

Mahalakshmi Ashtakam — opening verse

The opening verse of the Mahalakshmi Ashtakam, traditionally recited by Indra.

Mahalakshmi Ashtakam 1edition

Sanskrit · संस्कृत

नमस्तेऽस्तु महामाये श्रीपीठे सुरपूजिते । शङ्खचक्रगदाहस्ते महालक्ष्मि नमोऽस्तुते ॥

namaste'stu mahāmāye śrīpīṭhe surapūjite । śaṅkhacakragadāhaste mahālakṣmi namo'stute ॥

Read in another script

No verified recitation yet. We publish audio only with a named reciter and a recorded licence, rather than files of unknown provenance.

Meaning

Salutation to you, great Maya, seated on the Shri-pitha, worshipped by the gods. You who hold the conch, the discus and the mace in your hands — Mahalakshmi, salutation to you.

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

Anushtubh, two lines of sixteen syllables, and the simplest metre in this batch — a good first stotra to learn. नमस्तेऽस्तु is namaḥ + te + astu, contracted twice; say namaste'stu as one run, with the avagraha marking the swallowed a. महालक्ष्मि is a vocative with a short final i, not the nominative mahālakṣmī — the shortening is how you hear that she is being addressed.

Repetitions: 1 · 3 · 8
Time: sunrise, 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

नमःnamaḥ: salutation(nom. sg. n.)MW1899-CDSL p.528
तेte: to you(dat. sg.)MW1899-CDSL p.855
अस्तुastu: let there be(3rd sg. impv.)MW1899-CDSL p.117
महामायेmahāmāye: O great Maya(voc. sg. f.)MW1899-CDSL p.798
श्रीपीठेśrīpīṭhe: O you on the seat of Shri(voc. sg. f.)
सुरपूजितेsurapūjite: O you worshipped by the gods(voc. sg. f.)
शङ्खचक्रगदाहस्तेśaṅkhacakragadāhaste: O you with conch, discus and mace in hand(voc. sg. f.)

Context

The verse hands Lakshmi three of Vishnu's four emblems — conch, discus and mace — and leaves out only the lotus, which is already hers. That is not decorative. An ashtakam that opens by arming the goddess with her consort's weapons is placing her on his level, and the epithet mahāmāyā, borrowed from the Devi tradition rather than the Vaishnava one, pushes in the same direction. śrīpīṭha, the seat of Shri, is both a place in temple iconography and a technical term in Shrividya for the diagram the goddess occupies. The word does quiet work here. The colophon calls the hymn indrakṛta, made by Indra: the frame is that the king of the gods recited it to regain the fortune he had lost.

Shadanga — the six limbs

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

chhanda: Anushtubh
devata: Mahalakshmi

Recited at / traditionally recited for

Abundance (samriddhi)Diwali / Lakshmi puja Avahana (invocation)

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

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