36) Stanabhāra-dalanmadhya-paṭṭabandha-valitrayā
(She whose waist, pressed by the weight of Her breasts, bears three horizontal folds like a triple girdle)
Here the text becomes architectonic. Beauty is no longer merely seen; it bears weight.
Lalitā’s breasts are heavy—not with flesh, but with creation itself. The abundance of manifestation presses downward. Her waist, exquisitely narrow, appears almost unable to sustain this plenitude. And so, three horizontal lines arise, as though a golden band were wound thrice around Her middle to hold the worlds in place.
These are not decorative folds. They are structural principles.
Tripuṭī Revealed in the Body
The three lines signify the primordial tripuṭī:
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the observer
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the observed
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the relation of observation
This is not philosophy imposed on the body; it is the body confessing metaphysics. Wherever there are two, a third necessarily appears. Duality cannot exist without relation. Out of One, three arise—not by intention, but by the intrinsic dynamism of awareness.
The navel above is the one centre.
Below it, the three lines appear as the supporting field of manifestation.
The waist thus takes the form of an hourglass—figure-eight—suggesting polarity emerging from unity. One becomes two, and the tension between them births the third. Creation begins not with matter, but with relation.
The Three Paths, Already Contained
This tripuṭī is lived as three possible resolutions:
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When observer absorbs observed → jñāna mārga
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When observed absorbs observer → bhakti mārga
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When relation alone dominates → karma mārga
These are not competing paths. They are biases of resolution. Each collapses the triad differently, but all dissolve into identity. Identity alone is the final relation—one that includes even the absence of relation, sākṣībhāva, witnessing without division.
Thus the three lines both support the One and are supported by the One. Higher and lower here are only levels of description, not of truth.
Cosmic Correspondence
In the Śrī Cakra, this is seen as the bindu supported by triangular lines below it. In the cosmos, it is Brahmā–Viṣṇu–Īśvara and their śaktis Sarasvatī–Lakṣmī–Kālī. In the body, it is the waist holding the weight of creation.
But Lalitā is prior to all these. She does not merely generate gods and demons—She is them. Highest and lowest, pure and impure, witness and object—She plays all roles without exhaustion. Hence She is mother, daughter, wife, enemy, friend, and indifferent absolute—because She is not confined to any single relational axis.
All relations finally collapse into identity.
“Aham brahmāsmi” is not a declaration; it is the body recognizing itself.
37) Aruṇaruṇa-kausumbha-vastra-bhāsvat-kaṭītaṭī
(She whose hips shine, clad in a deep crimson garment)
Now comes the veil.
Below the three lines, Lalitā wears a cloth of intense red—aruṇāruṇa, crimson upon crimson. This is not modesty. It is cosmic necessity.
Below the tripuṭī, manifestation thickens. What descends further is governed by space, time, causality. Attraction and repulsion dominate. Passion, lust, anger—these are not moral failures; they are optical densities. Consciousness, looking at itself through matter, forgets itself.
Red is the colour of rāga—attachment, heat, blood, life. The cloth covers the womb, the yoni of worlds. That which generates bodies must be veiled, for if seen directly, it would dissolve form.
Above the navel, there is no covering.
Truth needs no veil.
But below it, concealment is compassion.
Thus Lalitā Herself chooses to hide Her own source—not out of shame, but to allow līlā. The covering enables forgetting; forgetting enables play.
The so-called modern fashion of wearing the garment low is, unknowingly, already encoded here. The Goddess knew long ago where the boundary lies: above—revelation; below—incarnation.
The red cloth does not negate divinity. It stages it.
Where there is no veil, there is no world.
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