Tasmai (तस्मै, IAST: Tasmai) is a Sanskrit-origin Hindu girl-name meaning “Unto That; to the supreme indescribable one”. Tasmai is the dative singular of the demonstrative pronoun tat ('That'), the same syllable enshrined in the Mahāvākya 'Tat tvam asi'; in the namāvalī it becomes an act of pointing the whole self toward the ineffable Absolute.

Meaning, etymology & significance

The appearance of tasmai in the Lalitā Sahasranāma is extraordinary — it is not a noun-name but a pronoun in the dative, meaning 'to That One,' an acknowledgment that the Devī ultimately exceeds all naming. This is a moment of profound apophatic theology within the stotra: having exhausted descriptive epithets, the text gestures toward the nameless. In Vedānta, 'Tat' is one of the four great sayings, and its dative form here reads as pure surrender to the nameless Brahman identified with Lalitā.

Because tasmai is a grammatical pronoun rather than a proper name, it is unsuitable as a given name for a child and is best encountered in its original liturgical context within the Sahasranāma recitation.

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Scriptural source

Tasmai 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, Tasmai aligns with the Purva phalguni nakshatra, under the Simha rashi (Moon sign). Its Chaldean name-number is 5.