Karpura Gauram Mantra
कर्पूरगौरं करुणावतारं संसारसारं भुजगेन्द्रहारम् । सदा वसन्तं हृदयारविन्दे भवं भवानीसहितं नमामि ॥Also known as Karpur Gauram Karunavataram Mantra
In Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.
What the Karpura Gauram is
Karpura Gauram is a single Sanskrit verse of four quarters addressed to Shiva under the name Bhava, with his consort Bhavani, that is Parvati, beside him. Each quarter does one thing. The first gives two epithets: karpuragauram, white as camphor, and karunavataram, compassion itself come down in form. The second calls him samsarasaram, the essence of worldly existence, and bhujagendraharam, the one who wears the king of serpents as a garland. The third says where he lives: sada vasantam hridayaravinde, ever dwelling in the lotus of the heart. The fourth names the pair and holds the verse's only main verb, namami, I bow. No author is known. The metre is Upajati, a classical form that mixes eleven-syllable Indravajra and Upendravajra lines; here the first two quarters run in Indravajra and the last two in Upendravajra.
A ritual-manual verse that became the aarti close
No author's name has travelled with this verse, and two attributions repeated in many printed and recorded versions do not hold, so they are worth correcting gently. The first calls it a Yajurveda mantra. Its Upajati metre belongs to classical Sanskrit poetry rather than to the Vedic metres, and it does not appear in the mantra index of the Shukla Yajurveda. The confusion is understandable: in the Rudrapanchakam, a manual of Rudra worship, the verse stands with an Om prefix as the meditation verse placed directly before Namaste Rudra Manyave, the opening of the Yajurveda's Rudra chapter. The second attribution says Vishnu sang it at the wedding of Shiva and Parvati, as told in the Shiva Purana. No chapter or verse is ever given for this, and the Sanskrit text of the Shiva Purana, including the wedding chapters of the Parvati Khanda in its Rudra Samhita, does not contain the verse. Where it can be traced is the ritual digests. The Dikshaprakasha, a manual of initiation and worship, sets it among the dhyana verses for Shiva, right after Dhyayen nityam Mahesham, so that the worshipper holds the deity's form in mind before worship begins. From that use it passed into household and temple aarti, where it is sung as the camphor flame is offered, often followed by Mangalam Bhagavan Vishnuh and Sarva Mangala Mangalye.
The mantra, in six scripts
- कर्पूरगौरं
- karpūragauraṃ — white as camphor
- करुणावतारं
- karuṇāvatāraṃ — compassion embodied
- संसारसारं
- saṃsārasāraṃ — essence of worldly existence
- भुजगेन्द्रहारम्
- bhujagendrahāram — garlanded with the serpent king
- सदा
- sadā — always
- वसन्तं
- vasantaṃ — dwelling
- हृदयारविन्दे
- hṛdayāravinde — in the lotus of the heart
- भवं
- bhavaṃ — Bhava (Shiva)
- भवानीसहितं
- bhavānīsahitaṃ — together with Bhavani
- नमामि
- namāmi — I bow
The syllable people get wrong
In hṛdayāravinde, 'in the lotus of the heart', the short a after hṛd is often swallowed, giving 'hridyaarvinde'. Sound all six syllables, hri-da-YAA-ra-VIN-de, with ṛ as a short vowel close to 'ri' and the long ā held, since the metre needs that short da.
When the Karpura Gauram is chanted
Weekday. Monday
Questions
Have your chart read before you decide
Chanting is yours to do, and free. But which deity your situation calls for — and whether a mantra alone is the right response — depends on your chart. Sometimes it is; sometimes it is not.
- Over 30 years in the Guru–Sishya Parampara, from the age of five
- He reads every chart himself — 60 minutes, one to one, never delegated
- Charts are read only between sunrise and sunset, following tradition
Related
Chanting is yours to do. Some things are performed for you.
Where a matter carries real weight, devotees sponsor the homa alongside their own practice. Performed for you and any family members you name, at our Yagna Ashram, in your name and gotra, on a muhurta calculated from your chart, and telecast live so you can watch it done for you.