3Another meaning suggests itself to the mind: ‘I pray to the goddess in each object because it is not known what is her real form’.

4Idiomatically translated, ‘who knows’.

5Perhaps, lagāye, ‘has it affixed’ (knit together, interwoven, embroidered).

6S. catvara, a raised platform, sthaṇḍila; see p. 25.

7In the original, actually, third person future, ‘shall incarnate’.

1Satyendra ('49: 377), explaining ‘hingalāj kī īsurī’ (the goddess of Hinglāj) in a song, states: ‘Hingulaj is in Bilochistan (West Pakistan: author), about twenty miles from the sea shore at the bank of the river Aghor or Hingul or Hingulā, in a corner of a mountain called ‘Hingulā’. It is one of the pīṭhas of Devī. Here the brahma-randhra (fontanelle) of the ‘Satī’ had fallen. Here Durgā is known as the Mahāmāyā or Koṭṭarī’. For a long time now this famous shrine is maintained by the Muslims as a sacred place of their Pīrs. See also the song about the worship of Hinglāj by Emperor Akbar (H.S.B.I. Chattīsgaṛhī: 289).

2Perhaps Kāmākṣā temple, the centre of the tantric worship and an important pīṭha of Śakti in Assam.

3It is not clear whether this is Vṛndāvana or Vindhyāvana. If Vṛndāvana, it is not certain which temple is meant, unless it is the pedestal of Tulasī (see p. 40), which is also called Vṛndāvana (vide Kosambi '62: 56). On the other hand there is an important pīṭha of Śakti in the Vindhya hills near Mirzapur which seems more likely to have been meant here as it is in the homeland of the immigrants.