Since you, O vile sinner, whose mind is steeped in impurity, remained rooted to your seat like a python, you shall become a snake! Condemned to that vile state, O vilest of the vile, crawl into the hollow of some huge forest tree and there abide!”

When the guru heard Shiva’s terrible curse, he raised a piteous wail, and seeing me all in a tremble, he was sore distressed.

As he reflected on my horrifying fate, the Brahman devoutly prostrated himself before Shiva and with folded hands and faltering voice uttered this humble prayer:

“I reverence the sovereign Lord, the embodiment of salvation, the omnipotent and all-pervading Absolute, manifest in the form of the Vedas! I worship the self-contained, the unqualified, undifferentiated, desireless, intelligence, the heavens themselves, wearing the heavens as his garment!

I bow to the supreme Lord, who is formless, source of the sacred syllable (Om) symbolizing Brahma, the noumenal Self of creatures which transcends all conditions and states, beyond all speech, understanding or sense-perception, terrible yet gracious, the ruler of Kailasa, the devourer even of Death, the almighty, the abode of virtues, immortal!

I worship Shankara, solemn and white as the snow-clad Himalaya, radiant with the beauty of a myriad Loves, with the fair rippling Ganga sparkling out from his matted locks, the crescent moon adorning his brow and snakes coiling round his neck;

Who is the beloved Lord of all, with tremulous pendants hanging from his ear-lobes, beauteous eyebrows and large eyes, who is pitiful, with a cheerful countenance and a blue speck on his throat, a lion-skin wrapped round his waist and necklace of skulls round his neck!