Shri Lalitha Sahasranamam: Namam 237: Shri Catuh sasti koti yogini gana servita (OM mahAchatuHShaShTikoTi yoginIgaNasevitAyai namaH)

 In Namams 199 to 248, the Divine Mother’s  Saguna or infiniteness power and glory are described. 

The Divine Mother is attended by sixty-four Crores of (640 millions) yogins. 

Matured souls are there everywhere; they may be called yogins. It is customary to consider them in female form. All such very able sixty-four Crore yogins have many desires to complete in their life cycles. Of the souls having varying beauty and different happiness levels are worshipping the Divine Mother; proper use of knowledge and wisdom is also representing the Divine Mother’s worship. 

There are eight main yogins serving the Divine Mother as in the Sri Vidya Chakra. They are: Brahmi, Mahesvari, Kaumari, Vaisnavi, Varahi, Mahendri, Chamundi and Mahalakshmi. Each of these yogins has eight Saktis, making a total of sixty-four. Each Sakti, in turn, has one crore (ten millions) of yogins as part of herself. These sixty-four crores of yogins reside in nine cakaras, starting from Trailokyamohana in Sri Chakara; they all worship the Divine Mother as referred in this Namam. The number nine, representing the nine walls in the Srichakra is referred as maha in ancient Hindu vedic languages. 

There are many thousands of energies of desire (iccasakti) going round the minds of the devotees. These groups of yogins imply such energies circulating around. 

There is legend about these sixty-four crore yogins’ names. Acharya Bhaskararaya , who wrote the detailed explanations for the Shri Lalitha Sahasranamam, did a Mahayagam in Varanasi (Kasi). Some Gurus who were jealous wanted to discredit Bhaskararaya. They called him to name all the sixty-four crore yogins. When Bhaskararaya started saying those names continuously nonstop, they accepted their defeat and surrendered. One Guru, Kungunanthar understood that it was the Divine Mother saying those yogins, sitting on Bhaskararaya’s shoulders, names through Bhaskararaya. He paid respects to Bhaskararaya on his devotion to the Divine Mother, the Supreme Self. This is yet another incident to show that the Divine Mother comes to the devotee’s help without ever asking for help. Another incident was to save Abirami Bhatter when he was singing his 79^th Abirami song waiting to be put into fire by the King’s orders, by throwing out Her left ear ring into the air to be brighter than full moon and to show that it was indeed a full moon day to the King present there. 

In later years when Bhaskararaya wrote the commentaries on Divine Mother’s glories, he did not disclose them fully, leaving the rest for the devotee to learn from a Guru. This way he tried to keep the secret materials to be learnt through the Guru.

Goddess Tripurasundari pictured in Sri Chakra Bindu abode.

C N Nachiappun          

Singapore, 16 September 2020.

 

References:

1.       The Thousand Names of the Divine Mother published in English by Mata Amritanandamayi Center, San Ramon, California, USA, with Commentary by T. V Narayana Menon

2.       Shri Lalitha Sahasranama Stostram published in Tamil by N. Ramaswami Iyer charities’ societies, Trichirapalli, India, with Commentary by C. V. Radhakrishna Sastry.

3.       The Lalitha Sahasranamam published in Tamil by Shri Ramakrishna Thapovanam, Thiruipparaithurai, Trichy District, Tamilnadu, India with commentary by Shrimath Swami Sithbavandar.