Shri Lalitha Sahasranamam: Namam 757: Shri Kshara-akshara-atmika (ōṃ kṣarākṣarātmikāyai namaḥ)

The Divine Mother is in both perishable and non-perishable forms. She is the Atman in them.

She is in perishable and non-perishable forms. The one coming into life and being dissolved is called Ksharam. If we look around the universe, many new things are coming into being and after a while they are reaching destroyable forms. The twenty-four Tattvas based Universe is ever changing. The basis for such changes is the Divine Mother who is pervading the whole universe; She is beyond such changes. Therefore, She Aksharam.

In each living being there are changing body Tattvas and non-changing Tattvas. In five key elements four are ever changing and the fifth (Sky) is not changing; it becomes the base support for all. This sky becomes the Akshara Brahman. Even in the sea the bottom is not changing while the surface has moving waves. Likewise, the Divine Mother is in changing and non-changing forms. That is to say that the Divine Mother is within dissolvable and non-dissolvable forms.

The one that comes into being goes through changing and dissolving is called Ksharam. The one that the Divine Mother is forever eternally without changing is Aksharam. Words can be changed or destroyed but the basic alphabet does not disappear. The universe is Ksharam while the Brahman is Aksharam. The Divine Mother is in both forms.

The samsara-bound atman mistakes its current life body to be itself. The imperishable(akshara) atman is Eternal Self. The imperishable and beginningless nature of Self has been made clear in many places in Bhagavad Gita; for instance Him weapons cut not; fire burns not.

Kshara also means “diverse”. A mind that runs in diverse directions is, indeed, perishable.

Akshara contains letters of alphabet or Syllables. The Divine Mother is one who is in the form of letters and syllables. She is known as one syllable or many syllables. The Divine Mother, who is creator, is the one syllable and the Divine Mother who awakens the sense of diversity is in many syllables.

This name may be compared with an earlier name “Sat- Asat -rupadarini” The Divine Mother is in both forms, just as gold manifests as pure gold or as various gold ornaments. This variety in the Divine Mother is indicated in  the celebrated passage from Gita “the perishable includes all creatures, the Supreme is imperishable”.

The Divine Mother eliminated asuras Chanda and Munda.

 

C N Nachiappan

Singapore, 20 February 2022; updated 10 May 2025.

References:

1.   The Thousand Names of the Divine Mother published in English by Mata Amritanandamis AparnaSan 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