Shri Lalitha Sahasranamam: Namam 981: Shri Jnana jneya svarupini (ōṃ Jṇāna Jṇēyasvarūpiṇyai namaḥ)

The Divine Mother is both knowledge and known.

She is Supreme Knowledge and on known forms. In root form, the Divine Mother is the Supreme Knowledge. That is termed as Prayik Jnana. When that is reflected in individual souls, it is called Self Knowledge or mind sense. This differs for each soul depending upon its maturity. The root-based knowledge is totally in Self form. Each soul’s self-knowledge at lower level shows the differences with others.

The Divine Mother is less understood, and Her forms are mostly doubtful to normal humans. There are other ways to understand Her true forms. To provide for the worldly needs, She is functioning as Superior Knowledge and as Ignorance. To understand this fact and to live well according to the conditions is form of the Divine Mother worship.

The devotee who seeks to understand ‘I’ realizes that the known is also the ‘I’, the Supreme Brahman or the Divine Mother. All three aspects of to know, knower and the known are merged to get the Cit form as a result. The Divine Mother is in that form.

The mind must be as still as the eye when counting one by one to reach that there is nothing more to count.

Jneya means that which is known and that can be counted. After counting everything, nothing more countable remains, and only Jnana (knowledge itself) and  the ‘eye’ that did that counting remains.

The conditioned Jiva (soul or samsara) is the one who is counting. With conditioning, the limitations or upadhi such as the body has been counted as the Jiva(soul), only Jnana remains. “Jiva is non other than Brahman, as all these souls has originated from Brahman and are trying to go back there, as referenced by Adi Shankara. Thus, this Namam means the Divine Mother is in the form of the Self and the non-Self.

The Divine Mother is both knowledge and known.

C N Nachiappan

Singapore, 01 October 2022; updated 04 November 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.