Throughout his great work Soundarya Lahari, Adi Sankara establishes the glory and greatness of her person and beauty. She is Sri Mata and the empress in control of everything! She is not of ordinary origin. She is born out of the sacrificial fire for the specific purpose of the destruction of the demons tormenting the Devas! Her radiance is dazzling and unbearable like that of a thousand suns! She has enveloped all the worlds with her softlight! She is adorned with ornaments that defy all description. Her soft lotus feet make fun of the very lotus itself! Her gait is that of the dignified swan! She is the resident of her palace called “Chintamani.” She is highly motivated to fight Bhandasura the tormentor of Devas! She sends out her Commanders like Bala, Mantrini and Varahi to attack the asura and is happy and satisfied with their performance! She creates Ganesa and destroys all the mines and the yantras planted by the Asuras! She shoots a battery of arrows in reply to those sent by the asura! Not stopping wit this, Sri Lalithambika creates, from the tip of her nails, the ten avatars of Vishnu to assist her!
This is how Sri Lalita Sahasra Nama Stotra describes the Devi! It is clear from the description that the Devi is all in all, very powerful and totally immersed in the work for which She has taken avatar! She is the Supreme Brahman capable of creation, protection and destruction through her Sankalpa! The Trinity, viz Creator Brahma, protector Vishnu and Rudra the destroyer are children to her! They remain by Her side with their spouses and praise and worship her! All the legions of Devas like the Siddhas, Sadhyas, Kinnaras, Kimpurushas, Gandharvas and others are obedient to Her and praise her glory! Adi Sankara wants to to extol the universal Mother and indicates how the Trimurthis are totally dependent on the mercy and Grace of Maha Tripurasundari! With his natural poetic fervour, Sankara points out that but for her “pada dhuli”- the dust of the feet of the Goddess-they would not be in a position to do their jobs!
Says Sankara, “ O Mother! Brahma is in a position to create the world mainly because he has taken the delicate dust out of your lotus feet! He has been very successful in creating all living and nonliving things! It is not different for Vishnu! He is capable of bearing the the heavy burden of all the worlds on his thousand heads because of the same minute dust of the lotus feet of MahaTripuraSundari!
What about Lord Siva? He sails in the same boat! Sankara smartly says, “ Siva takes the minute “ Pada dhuli” in his hands and presses it still more nicely and applies it to his entire body!” Otherwise he would fail in his duty! We may feel a little shocked at the description of the Trimurthis by Sankara! Is he belittling them? Not at all! There is poetic licence for great writers and poets! In order to establish their point of view, they are allowed to express themselves in this manner. There is no offence to any one!
In “ Saaktham” or worship of Shakthi, She is the Supreme Reality and all others are subordinated to Her! Primacy is given to the presiding deity! It is so in all our Puranas also. In Vishnu Purana, He is the Supreme Being and everything is subordinated to Him! Likewise in Other Puranas, the respective Gods and Goddesses remain Supreme! It does not mean that other Gods are belittled! As we all know there is only one God! There is no second! The Veda says “ Ekam eva adwitiyam Brahma” Sri Sankara himself is an exponent of Adwaita Philosophy!
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