Cite
MLA
“Mata Annapurna.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/devata/annapurna/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Mata Annapurna. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/devata/annapurna/
अन्नपूर्णे सदापूर्णे शङ्करप्राणवल्लभे।
ज्ञानवैराग्यसिद्ध्यर्थं भिक्षां देहि च पार्वति॥
annapūrṇe sadāpūrṇe śaṅkaraprāṇavallabhe |
jñānavairāgyasiddhyarthaṃ bhikṣāṃ dehi ca pārvati ||
The Agamas describe her as young and red-complexioned, seated on a throne with the crescent moon on her head, four-armed: a pot of cooked grain, a golden ladle, and the abhaya and varada mudras. In many paintings Shiva stands before her as a mendicant with his begging bowl held out. At Horanadu she stands in gold, holding the shankha, chakra, a Shri Chakra and the Gayatri.
01The katha of the empty bowl
Once, the katha goes, Mahadev told Mata Parvati that the world was maya, food included. The Devi withdrew. Hearths went cold, crops failed, and devas, men and Shiva’s own ganas went hungry. Then word came that in Kashi a Devi was feeding all who came. Shiva went there with his kapala held out as a bowl, and Annapurna filled it with her own hand. He had risen above hunger, she showed him, but the beings in his care had not. Kashi says from that day no one in the city sleeps hungry. The Skanda Purana tells how she gave food to Maharshi Vyasa in Varanasi, and the Telugu poet Srinatha sang her in his Kasikhandamu.
02Shankaracharya’s stotram
The Annapurna Stotram, carried in the works of Adi Shankaracharya, ends each verse with the same request: bhikṣāṃ dehi kṛpāvalambanakarī mātānnapūrṇeśvarī, Mother Annapurneshvari, who holds us up by her grace, give alms. In its eleventh verse the beggar finally names the alms he wants. It is not rice. He asks for jnana and vairagya, knowledge and freedom from craving. Many households recite that verse before eating. Some printed editions insert three further verses after the tenth, taken from the sixteenth patala of the Annada Kalpa Tantra, so the stotram is found in a longer and a shorter form.
03Kashi and Horanadu
Her temple in Kashi stands in the Vishwanath gali, a few steps from the Jyotirlinga, and pilgrims take darshan of both together. The present building is held to have been raised under Peshwa Baji Rao I in the 1720s. An 18th-century murti of Annapurna, stolen from Varanasi about a century ago, was returned from Canada and installed in the Kashi Vishwanath Dham in November 2021. In Karnataka, at Horanadu on the Bhadra river in the forests of the Malnad, the kshetra holds that Maharshi Agastya installed Annapoorneshwari, and every visitor at any hour is given a meal. Akshaya Tritiya is kept by many as her day of appearance.
In the texts
- Annapurna Stotram (Annapurnashtakam) of Adi Shankaracharya
- Skanda Purana, Kashi Khanda
- Annada Kalpa Tantra
