Para (परा, IAST: Parā) is a Sanskrit-origin Hindu girl-name meaning “The supreme, the transcendent, the highest reality”. From the Sanskrit para (beyond, supreme, other shore), this single syllable of a name encapsulates the Goddess's absolute transcendence over all manifest and unmanifest creation — she is Parā, the furthest shore of existence that nothing surpasses.

Meaning, etymology & significance

In Śākta tantra, especially in the Trika system of Kashmir, Parā is the first and highest of the four levels of vāk (divine speech): Parā, Paśyantī, Madhyamā, and Vaikharī — a sequence that the Lalitā Sahasranāma traverses across several consecutive names. As Parā, Lalitā is the undifferentiated, transcendent vibration of consciousness-speech that precedes all thought and sound, residing in the mūlādhāra as pure potential. This name is therefore not merely an adjective meaning 'supreme' but a technical designation of the Goddess as the absolute ground of all sonic and cognitive existence.

Parā is an epithet shared by several forms of the Goddess — including Parā Devī and Parā Śakti — and is invoked at the opening of many Śākta stotras; as a given name it is used across India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, often in the form Parā or Paradevī. Short and euphonious, it is pronounced PA-raa with a long final vowel.

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Scriptural source

Para appears in the Lalitha Sahasranama, among the sacred names of Lalitha.

Astrology — nakshatra, rashi & numerology

By the standard Vedic correspondence between a name’s first syllable and the lunar mansion, Para aligns with the Uttara phalguni nakshatra, under the Kanya rashi (Moon sign). Its Chaldean name-number is 3.