When it is sung
Sung at the evening aarti on each of the nine nights of Navratri — Ghatasthapana on 11 October to Maha Navami on 19 October 2026 — at Durga Ashtami, at Mahalakshmi and Renuka temples across Maharashtra, and at any household Devi puja. On Vijayadashami, 20 October, it closes the season.
- Ghatasthapana (Navratri begins)
First of the nine nights
- Durga Ashtami
- Vijayadashami
Dussehra
Full text, with meaning
Each line of the verse, with its romanisation beneath and what the verse says after it.
Verse 1
दुर्गे दुर्घट भारी तुजविण संसारीं।
Durge durghat bhari tujvin sansari
अनाथनाथे अंबे करुणा विस्तारीं॥
Anathnathe Ambe karuna vistari
वारीं वारीं जन्ममरणांतें वारीं।
Vari vari janma-maranante vari
हारीं पडलों आतां संकट निवारीं॥ १॥
Hari padlo aata sankat nivari
Meaning
Durga — without you the world is a hard, heavy place to cross. Mother, lord of those who have no one, spread your compassion wide. Again and again, turn away this birth and death; I have lost, and now I ask you to take the trouble away. The first word, durghat, means an impassable place; the aarti opens by admitting the singer cannot get through alone.
Dhrupad (the refrain)
जय देवी जय देवी जय महिषासुरमर्दिनी।
Jai devi jai devi jai Mahishasur-mardini
सुरवर-ईश्वर-वरदे तारक संजीवनी॥ धृ॥
Survar-Ishwar-varade tarak sanjeevani
Meaning
Victory to the goddess, victory to the slayer of Mahishasura — giver of boons to the best of the gods and to Ishwara himself, the saviour, the one who restores life. The refrain names the story Navratri retells: the buffalo demon the gods could not kill, and the goddess who could.
Verse 2
त्रिभुवनभुवनीं पाहतां तुज ऐसी नाहीं।
Tribhuvan-bhuvani pahata tuj aisi nahi
चारी श्रमले परंतु न बोलवे कांहीं॥
Chari shramale parantu na bolave kahi
साही विवाद करितां पडले प्रवाहीं।
Sahi vivad karita padale pravahi
ते तूं भक्तांलागीं पावसि लवलाहीं॥ जय देवी॥ २॥
Te tu bhaktanlagi pavasi lavlahi
Meaning
Search the three worlds and there is no one like you. The four Vedas laboured and still could say nothing; the six philosophies argued and were swept away in the current. And yet you — you come to your devotees at once. This is the whole theology of the aarti: scripture and reasoning fail where plain devotion is answered immediately.
Verse 3 (closing)
प्रसन्नवदने प्रसन्न होसी निजदासां।
Prasann-vadane prasann hosi nijdasa
क्लेशांपासुनि सोडवीं तोडीं भवपाशा॥
Kleshapasuni sodavi todi bhav-pasha
अंबे तुजवांचून कोण पुरविल आशा।
Ambe tujvachun kon puravil asha
नरहरि तल्लीन झाला पदपंकजलेशा॥ जय देवी॥ ३॥
Narahari tallin jhala pad-pankaj-lesha
Meaning
Bright-faced one, you are pleased with your own servants; free them from sorrow, cut the noose of worldly existence. Mother, without you who will fulfil hope? Narahari is lost in a single particle of your lotus feet. The signature is Sant Narahari, and lesha — a particle, the smallest possible share — is the measure he asks for.
About this aarti
This is the aarti of Navratri in Maharashtra, as Jai Ambe Gauri is in the north. The two could hardly be more different. Jai Ambe Gauri is twelve verses of portrait and victory — the vermilion, the lion, the demons named one by one. Durge Durghat Bhari is three verses and describes nothing; it argues, and its subject is the singer’s own helplessness.
The second verse is famous in Marathi devotional literature for what it says about knowledge. The chari, the four Vedas, grew tired and fell silent; the sahi, the six darshanas of Hindu philosophy, argued among themselves until the current carried them off. Against all that, the goddess simply comes, lavlahi — quickly. It is the bhakti position stated in eight words.
The closing signature names Narahari, and tradition identifies him with Sant Narahari Sonar, the goldsmith-saint of Pandharpur in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a contemporary of Namdev, though the attribution cannot be proven. The aarti is in any case centuries old and appears in every printed Marathi collection; it is public domain.
In a Maharashtrian Navratri the evening sequence is usually a Ganesh aarti first, then this one for the goddess, then Ghalin Lotangan to close. Households that keep a ghat for the nine nights sing it morning and evening; on Vijayadashami it is sung a last time before the ghat is lifted.
A note on the text
The text follows the printed Marathi Aarti Sangrah cited below (Faizpur, 2008), from the scanned copy on the Internet Archive, cross-checked against the second collection cited. Scanning errors have been corrected against those copies: the scans read “महिषासुरमदिनी” for महिषासुरमर्दिनी, “ईध्वर” for ईश्वर, “भवपाक्ा” for भवपाशा and “पदपंकजलेक्षा” for पदपंकजलेशा. The two printings differ only in orthography — one uses the older anusvara-heavy spelling (करुणा विस्तारीं, पडलों) and the other the modern one; the older form has been kept. Several sung versions add a fourth verse; the three-verse text is what both printed collections carry.
Sources
- Aarti Sangrah (Marathi, Faizpur 2008) — scanned copy, Internet Archive
- Aarti Book (Marathi aarti collection) — scanned copy, Internet Archive
These texts are in the public domain. The verse is reproduced from the cited source; the English meaning and the background notes on this page are original writing.