janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ svarāṭ tene brahma hṛdā ya ādi-kavaye muhyanti yaṃ sūrayaḥ | tejo-vāri-mṛdāṃ yathā vinimayo yatra tri-sargo mṛṣā dhāmnā svena sadā nirasta-kuhakaṃ satyaṃ paraṃ dhīmahi ||
The opening verse of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: we meditate on the Supreme Truth, from whom this universe's creation, sustenance and dissolution proceed -- directly and indirectly -- who is fully self-aware and independent, who imparted the Vedic knowledge to Brahmā (the first being) at the very start, who bewilders even great sages, and in whom the appearance of the created world is like fire, water and earth deceptively exchanging forms -- while he himself, by his own glory, is ever free of illusion.
Syllable timings on this page are an estimate: derived from the chant's own guru/laghu (light/heavy syllable) prosody and scaled to this clip's real length, not a frame-exact forced alignment — so the highlight tracks the rhythm closely but may drift slightly from the exact syllable being sung. Each syllable is transliterated independently into Kannada, Devanāgarī, and IAST, matching the three-script display used elsewhere in the project.