Kuntī

Kuntī said: I offer my obeisances to you, the original Person, the Lord beyond material nature, unseen, situated within and without all beings.

A person swollen with pride through good birth, power, learning, and beauty can never [sincerely] address you — you who are within reach [only] of one who has nothing.

I consider you to be Time, the supreme controller, without beginning or end, all-pervading, moving impartially everywhere — [you] through whom there is mutual strife among living beings.

To Kṛṣṇa, the son of Vasudeva, the delight of Devakī, the child of the cowherd Nanda, to Govinda — obeisances, again and again.

Obeisances to him of the lotus navel, obeisances to him who wears a garland of lotuses, obeisances to him of lotus eyes, obeisances to you whose feet [bear the mark of] the lotus.

As, O Hṛṣīkeśa, Devakī was imprisoned for a very long time by the wicked Kaṃsa and plunged into grief, and then released — so too I, together with my children, was delivered by you alone, our protector, O almighty Lord, again and again from a host of dangers.

Obeisances to you, the wealth of those who have nothing, who are beyond the workings of the material modes, satisfied in the self, peaceful, the Lord of liberation — obeisances.

No one knows, O Lord, your intention when you act in ways that bewilder people, seeming to imitate them; for no one is ever your favourite and none your enemy — though people wrongly conceive partiality in you.

Veiled by the curtain of māyā, O imperishable Lord beyond the senses, unknown [to the ignorant], you are not perceived by the foolish, dull-sighted one — just as an actor in costume [is not recognized] upon the stage.

From poison, from the great fire, from the man-eater, from the assembly of the wicked, from the hardships of dwelling in the forest, in battle after battle from the weapons of many great warriors, and from the weapon of Droṇa's son — from all these, O Hari, we have been fully protected.

Your birth and deeds among animals, men, sages, and aquatics, O Soul of the universe — though you are unborn and actionless, the Self — are utterly bewildering.

So then — how can we women possibly perceive you, who [have appeared] for the sake of [bestowing] the path of devotion upon the pure-hearted paramahaṃsa sages?

Let those calamities come again and again, in each of those places, O teacher of the universe — for in them there is the sight of you, which means the end of seeing repeated birth.

When you had done some mischief and the gopī [Yaśodā] took up a rope [to bind you], then that condition of yours — your eyes restless and bewildered, their collyrium smeared with tears, your face bent down as you stood in a mood of fear — bewilders me: you, of whom even Fear itself is afraid.