Shri Lalitha Sahasranamam: Namam 947: Shri Panca preta mancadhi sayini (ōṃ pañcaprētamañcādhiśāyinyai namaḥ)

The Divine Mother reclines on a couch made of Five Corpses.

She is sitting on the couch made of Five Corpses. Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, and Isvara are four deities as four legs. Sadashiva as the bed is used as a couch. The Divine Mother is sitting on that couch. The devotee can consider any one deity as his favourite and pray to it with essentially deep association with that deity.

At a young age, the devotee ought to read the epics. On growing up the first deity is his biological mother. For those orphaned children without a biological mother, high habits will not normally come. Mother’s affection is the root cause of all other devotions. For a devotee, the devotion towards a deity is like the child’s affection to its biological mother. To grow that affection and devotion, the epics show their favourite deities are great.

When we compare five deities as against the Divine Mother, then they are equal to corpses. For example, for electric light, electric fan, electric sounder, electric cooker, electric refrigerator all gets electric power from one source. If electricity is not switched on, this five equipment will not function or will be called dead. The Divine Mother provides these five deities with five different strengths and abilities. When Shiva is separated from Shakti, He also becomes a corpse.

To understand the glories of the Divine Mother, this Namam’s inner meaning is that devotee’s devotion increases towards the Divine Mother.

She is sitting on a higher couch made of five corpses. The five deities as mentioned earlier are leaving their assigned duties, losing own self nature, to surrender to the Divine Mother and to become the legs of her higher couch, Sadasiva also likewise becomes the bed in that couch. She is having Him as Her seat and is sitting in magnificent way.

To create the Universe, She is holding Her form as in Brahman.

She is sitting all alone on the couch.

We have seen that the Divine Mother’s couch has Brahma, 

Vishnu, Rudra and Isvara as the four legs and Sadashiva as the 

mattress in 58. Tripurasundari rests on that couch. It is the deep 

meditation on The Devi that makes these divinities motionless 

and Corpselike. Bhaskaracarya quotes from Bhairvamala: 

“On the great and auspicious Couch, pillow and mattress are 

Sadashiva, reclinesThe great Tripurasundari, the great Devi.” 

Also, Adi Sankara says in Lahari, verse 92, “Brahma, Vishnu, 

Rudra, and Isvara becomes the legs of your couch and Sadasiva 

becomes the pure white sheet as the bed.

The Divine Mother reclines on a couch made of the Five Corpses.    

 

C N Nachiappan

Singapore, 28 August 2022; Updated 25 October 2025.

References:

1.The Thousand Names of the Divine Mother published by Mata Amritanandam in California, USA, with Commentary by T. V Narayana Menon

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

3. The Lalitha Sahasranamam published in Tamil by Shri Ramakrishna Thapovanam, Thiruipparaithurai, Trichy District, Tamil Nadu, India with commentary by Shrimath Swami Sith-Bavandar.