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Kushmanda Mantra

ॐ देवी कूष्माण्डायै नमः ॥

Also known as Om Devi Kushmandayai Namah

In Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.

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What the Kushmanda Mantra is

The Maa Kushmanda Mantra, given here as the Kushmanda Mantra set, gathers the short texts said on the fourth day of Navaratri to Kushmanda, the fourth of the nine Durgas. It opens with the name mantra, Om Devi Kushmandayai Namah. The second item, headed Prarthana in some printings and dhyana in others, pictures her holding two pots in her lotus hands, one brimming with sura and one steeped in blood, and asks her to be the giver of good. The third is the stuti, built on the 'Ya devi sarvabhuteshu' refrain of the fifth chapter of the Devi Mahatmya, with Maa Kushmanda in the changing slot. The last four shlokas make a longer dhyana opening 'Vande vanchhita kamarthe'. They seat her on a lion with eight arms and a half moon on her crest, place her in the Anahata chakra, call her the fourth Durga and name the eight things she holds. None of the seven items carries an author's name.

A gourd, a cosmic egg and Kashi

The Devi Kavacham, read before the Durga Saptashati, counts Kushmanda fourth among the nine Durgas but tells nothing about her. What devotees know of her comes from later devotional tradition, which explains her name in two ways. In the first, anda is the cosmic egg: before any world existed and darkness filled every direction, she is said to have brought that egg forth, and so she is honoured as the primordial power. The same tradition gives her the title Suryamandala-antarvasini, she who dwells inside the sphere of the sun, and holds that she alone can bear its heat. In the second reading, kushmanda is simply the ash gourd, the offering she is said to favour above others. The long dhyana on this page keeps the solar thread when it compares her to the blazing sun. Her best-known shrine has a separate story. The Devi Bhagavata Purana tells of Prince Sudarshana, who won Shashikala, daughter of the king of Kashi, and was attacked by a rival for her hand; Durga appeared on a lion and fought for him, and the grateful king asked her to remain in the city. Temple tradition at Kashi worships the Goddess of the red shrine beside Durga Kund, built in the eighteenth century by Rani Bhabani of Natore, as Kushmanda.

The mantra, in six scripts

DevanagariSanskrit & Hindiॐ देवी कूष्माण्डायै नमः ॥

Tamilௐ தேவீ கூஷ்மாண்டாயை நமஃ ॥

Teluguఓం దేవీ కూష్మాణ్డాయై నమః ॥

Kannadaಓಂ ದೇವೀ ಕೂಷ್ಮಾಣ್ಡಾಯೈ ನಮಃ ॥

Malayalamഓം ദേവീ കൂഷ്മാണ്ഡായൈ നമഃ ॥

EnglishRoman transliterationoṃ devī kūṣmāṇḍāyai namaḥ ||

“Om, salutations to the Goddess Kushmanda.”

ॐ: oṃ — Om, the sacred syllable
देवी: devī — Goddess
कूष्माण्डायै: kūṣmāṇḍāyai — to Kushmanda
नमः: namaḥ — salutations

Kushmanda Mantra lyrics in full

The name mantra, the prarthana, the stuti and the four-shloka dhyana for the fourth day of Navaratri, each with its meaning.

All 7 verses, in Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English, each with its meaning. Choose a script:

Download the Kushmanda Mantra PDFAll 7 verses with their meanings, in Sanskrit. Free to print and keep.

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Mantra 1

ॐ देवी कूष्माण्डायै नमः ॥

Om, salutations to the Goddess Kushmanda.

Dhyanam 1

सुरासम्पूर्णकलशं रुधिराप्लुतमेव च ।
दधाना हस्तपद्माभ्यां कूष्माण्डा शुभदास्तु मे ॥

Holding in her two lotus hands a pot brimming with sura, the divine drink, and another steeped in blood, may Kushmanda be the giver of good to me.

Verse 1

या देवी सर्वभूतेषु माँ कूष्माण्डा रूपेण संस्थिता ।
नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमो नमः ॥

To the Goddess who dwells in all beings in the form of Mother Kushmanda: salutations to her, salutations to her, salutations to her, salutations again and again.

Dhyanam 2

वन्दे वाञ्छित कामार्थे चन्द्रार्धकृतशेखराम् ।
सिंहरूढ़ा अष्टभुजा कूष्माण्डा यशस्विनीम् ॥

For the fulfilment of the wishes I hold, I bow to her who wears the half moon as a crest: Kushmanda the glorious, eight-armed and mounted on a lion.

Dhyanam 3

भास्वर भानु निभाम् अनाहत स्थिताम् चतुर्थ दुर्गा त्रिनेत्राम् ।
कमण्डलु, चाप, बाण, पद्म, सुधाकलश, चक्र, गदा, जपवटीधराम् ॥

She shines like the blazing sun, abides in the Anahata chakra, and is the fourth Durga, the three-eyed one. She holds a water pot, a bow, an arrow, a lotus, a pot of nectar, a discus, a mace and a rosary.

Dhyanam 4

पटाम्बर परिधानां कमनीयां मृदुहास्या नानालङ्कार भूषिताम् ।
मञ्जीर, हार, केयूर, किङ्किणि, रत्नकुण्डल, मण्डिताम् ॥

She is clad in fine silk, lovely and gently smiling, adorned with many ornaments. She is decked with anklets, a necklace, armlets, small waist bells and jewelled earrings.

Dhyanam 5

प्रफुल्ल वदनांचारू चिबुकां कान्त कपोलाम् तुंग कुचाम् ।
कोमलाङ्गी स्मेरमुखी श्रीकंटि निम्ननाभि नितम्बनीम् ॥

Her face is bright as a full bloom, her chin fine, her cheeks lovely and her bosom high. She is tender of limb and smiling, graceful of neck, with a deep navel and shapely hips.

The syllable people get wrong

The name kūṣmāṇḍā is often said as a short 'Kush-manda'. It has three long vowels, a retroflex ṣ and a retroflex ṇḍ: say 'koosh-MAAN-daa', with the tongue curled back for the 'sh' and the 'nd'.

When the Kushmanda Mantra is chanted

Weekday. Friday

Festival. Navaratri Chaturthi, the fourth day of Navaratri

Questions

The prarthana says only that she holds two vessels in her lotus hands, one filled to the brim with sura and one drenched in blood, and asks her to be the giver of good. It gives no explanation of either. Translations differ on sura, rendering it as nectar or as the drink of the gods. The longer dhyana uses a different word, sudhakalasha, for the pot of nectar among her eight emblems, so the two verses picture her vessels in different terms.

Kushmanda is the Sanskrit word for the ash gourd or white pumpkin, and devotional tradition says it is the offering she favours, which is one explanation of her name. The other explanation reads anda as the cosmic egg she is said to have brought forth before creation. The verses on this page support neither reading directly: they name her Kushmanda and describe her form, her lion and her emblems, but never mention a gourd or an egg.

The phrase in the third shloka of the long dhyana means 'abiding in the Anahata', the heart chakra of yoga. Devotional tradition connects each day of Navaratri with a stage of inner worship, and the fourth day, Kushmanda's, with the Anahata. The same line calls her 'chaturtha durga', the fourth Durga, and 'trinetra', three-eyed, so one half-verse gives her place in the Navaratri sequence, her place in the body and a mark of her form.

The shrine most closely linked with her stands beside Durga Kund in Varanasi, an eighteenth-century temple whose goddess local tradition identifies as Kushmanda; the Devi Bhagavata Purana's story of Durga staying in Kashi at the king's request is told as its origin. The temple dates and the identification come from temple tradition rather than surveys. A Maa Kushmanda Devi temple is also known at Pipra Maafi in Mahoba district, Uttar Pradesh.

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