Shri Lalitha Sahasranamam: Namam 890: Shri Visva grasa (ōṃ visvagrāsāyai namaḥ 890)

The Divine Mother devours the universe during the pralaya.

She swallows / eats hungrily and quickly the galaxies in the universe. This is to happen during pralaya, when the whole universe is dissolved and absorbed by the Divine Mother.

When children are playing in the sand, they prepare the food using mud. They offer that muddy food to other children in the game. When their playing is over, they destroy the muddy house, muddy food and run to their own homes. The Divine Mother eats up the whole universe much easier than this example. When we are awake, we do all kinds of activities. When we go to sleep to rest, we keep them all in our mind. When we wake up, we try to follow through earlier activities from our memory. In a similar way, the Divine Mother, during pralaya, dissolves the universe within Her and later recreates them in a new cycle. We will have less attachments in current life, when we understand this.

Visva is the universe what we see. She eats up universe during pralaya. Those moveable and non-moveable parts of the universe are all dissolved within Her. We can understand that She devours (hungrily and quickly) the total universe. She has such high aptitude to eat up the whole universe.

The Sruti says, “That, to which returns the universe that exists.” ‘That’ here means the Divine Mother who is none other than Brahman. The Brahma sutras also imply this. It is the highest Self since what is moveable and what is immoveable becomes Its food.”

The description in Katha Upanishad (I.ii.25) quoted; “For whom brahmana and kshatriya are food and death itself is just a condiment.”

      The Divine Mother devours the universe during the pralaya. 

                                                                                                                     

C N Nachiappan

Singapore, 02 July 2022; updated 26 September 2025.

 

References:

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