Ambaa Stotram

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Ambaa Stotram

-composed by Swami Vivekananda

Translated by Swami Ashokananda:

 

Who art Thou, O beautiful doer of good, Thou who hast in thy hands

happiness and sorrow?

The water of existence is whirled by the breaking of powerful waves, O

Mother. Is it to remove,

here in the universe, the peace which is verily always broken in many ways,

that Thou art ceaselessly

engaged?

 

She in whose activity there is no respite distributes the fruit of karma

done; guide of future action; she who exists here-may She be to me everyday

the giver of boons. I know for sure this: that She is the holder of the

bonds of karma.

 

What dharma, what future, what writing-on-the-forehead, what unknown fruit

exists here without Her?

May She, whose self-dependent chain of will determines laws, the primal

guide, my shelter be!

 

Whose glories and immeasurable powers here swell the ocean made of births

and deaths; by whom the undifferentiated is made manifest, and to

unmanifest again returns; tell me, where can one take refuge except in Her?

 

To friend and foe thy lotus-eyes are even; in health and distress

unfaltering is the laying of thy hands, O

Mother; both immortality and the shadow of death are thy grace. Let not thy

most blessed, auspicious glances forsake me.

'

O Mother, O Thou the All! How can I, of small intelligence, praise Thee?

'Tis like the desire to grasp with my two hands the one nourisher of the

world.

I take refuge in the blessed feet--worthy of worship by the goddess

of fortune herself--the foundation of fearlessness, worshiped by the

highest of service.

 

She who from my birth has led me along the paths of extreme sorrow until

complete perfection is reached, in her sweet, playful, self-devised ways;

by whom my understanding is always well-inspired,

may that Mother, the All, be my refuge--with fruition or without.