Seeing the Kali age, Hara and Girijā, for the good of the world, wove a net of Śābara mantras — with syllables that do not match, meanings that will not stand, and no fixed manner of repetition; yet their power is manifest — it is the very might of Maheśa.
कलियुग देखकर, संसार के हित के लिए, हर (शिव) और गिरिजा (पार्वती) ने शाबर-मन्त्रों का जाल रचा — जिनके अक्षर परस्पर मेल नहीं खाते, अर्थ नहीं ठहरता, जप का कोई नियम नहीं — फिर भी उनका प्रभाव प्रत्यक्ष है, वह महेश का प्रताप है।
The Śābara mantras — folk incantations, not classical ones — are Śiva’s Kali-age concession. They break every rule of Sanskrit mantra-śāstra: mismatched syllables, unstable meaning, no prescribed repetition. And still they work. Tulsīdās notes this quietly because it is the same defence he is making for his own poem.