shree padmaavatee stotram'

Ten and more verses to Padmavati, consort of Venkateshwara, each one closing padmaavati namo'stu te. The second verse addresses her as venkat'eshapriye and as daughter of the ocean of milk. Her temple is at Tiruchanur, also called Alamelu Mangapuram, a short drive from Tirupati. Fridays and the month of Karthika are when the hymn is recited most.

Significance

The hymn keeps two things in view at once: the lotus and the marriage. She is born of the lotus and seated on it — Alarmelmangai in Tamil, the one on the lotus, which is the name most pilgrims use for her. And the verse beginning krito'dvaaha-mahotsave puts her at the wedding festival, with her nakshatra named, so the hymn is sung with the annual Brahmotsavam in mind rather than as abstract praise. Her being called daughter of the milk-ocean is the hymn taking a side: it reads her as Lakshmi herself, come again, rather than only as the princess whom the Venkatachala Mahatmya calls the daughter of Akasha Raja, found in a lotus pond. Both accounts are current at Tiruchanur and neither is discarded. The verses ask for what a household asks for — shelter, freedom from want, and the grace of her husband, since pilgrims hold that she is approached first and that a Tirumala visit is incomplete without her.

How and when to chant

Friday, morning or at the evening lamp, facing east. Read the verses through once; there is no count attached. In Karthika, and especially around Panchami Teertham at the close of her Brahmotsavam at Tiruchanur, families read it daily through the month. Pilgrims going to Tirumala often recite it at Tiruchanur before or after the hill darshan, following the old saying that she is to be seen along with her husband. Offerings are simple and specific here: kumkuma above all, then lotus if the season gives it, and the turmeric and bangles women leave for her.