Stotras

A stotra is a hymn of praise: verses addressed to a deity, meant to be recited, chanted or sung. The word comes from the Sanskrit root for praising. Hindus use stotras at dawn and dusk, at a festival, before a task, or at a time of need, and a single hymn may be said for years until it is known by heart. This page gathers forty-five of them and arranges them by the deity each one praises, so that a devotee who wants a hymn to Ganesha or to Devi can go straight to it.

The forty-five hymns on this page are not alike, and it helps to know the main kinds.

The commonest is the litany of names. An ashtottara shatanamavali is a list of one hundred and eight names, each offered with the syllable Om and the word namah, "I bow". There is one for Ganesha, Shiva, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Hanuman and many others, and each is chanted on days its page names, such as Fridays for Lakshmi and Tuesdays and Saturdays for Hanuman.

A second kind is the single poem in one meter. The Shiva Tandava Stotram is fifteen Sanskrit verses on Shiva's cosmic dance, traditionally attributed to Ravana and chanted at Pradosha. The Mahishasura Mardini Stotram is a celebrated hymn to Durga as the slayer of the buffalo demon, given here as twenty-one verses of a thirty-verse poem. The Subrahmanya Bhujangam and the Kanakadhara Stotram are attributed to Adi Shankaracharya, and the second carries a tradition that it brought golden amla fruits to a poor woman.

A third kind is a hymn taken from a larger text. The Aditya Hridaya is thirty-one verses from the Yuddha Kanda of Valmiki's Ramayana, in which the sage Agastya teaches Rama to praise Surya before the battle with Ravana. The Aghanashaka Gayatri Stotram comes from the Devi Bhagavata Purana, and the Sankata Nashana Ganesha Stotram is credited to the Narada Purana. A fourth kind is the protective hymn, such as the thirty-nine-verse Rama Raksha Stotram, which places the whole body in Rama's care.

Many stotras end with a closing verse called a phalashruti, "the hearing of the fruit", which names what the hymn is held to give to the one who recites it with faith. The Rama Raksha Stotram and the Aditya Hridaya are both known to close in this way. Some hymns are far larger than the forty-five gathered here. The Vishnu Sahasranama, the thousand names of Vishnu, is taught in the Anushasana Parva of the Mahabharata, where Bhishma recites it to Yudhishthira, and the Lalita Sahasranama of the Goddess belongs to the Brahmanda Purana. A devotee can begin with a short litany of one hundred and eight names and come to a longer hymn in time. The tradition asks for clear pronunciation, but it asks first for devotion. A hymn said slowly, with its meaning in mind and a lamp lit before the deity, is a fuller offering than one said in haste. Each hymn here is an invitation, not a test.

Many stotras are recited for a named purpose, and each page says what the tradition holds about it. The Rina Mochana Ganesha Stotram is said for release from debt, the Daridrya Dahana Shiva Stotram for poverty and sorrow, and the Dhanvantari Maha Mantra Stotram asks the divine physician to protect the afflicted from disease. We report these as the tradition tells them. A stotra is first of all praise, and the pages describe the benefits that devotees look for, not a result that can be promised.

The groups follow the deity, because that is how most readers come looking: Devi, with Lakshmi and Saraswati; Ganesha; Vishnu, with Rama, Krishna and Venkateshwara; Shiva; Hanuman; Murugan and Ayyappa; and Surya with the planets, whose hymns ask each of the nine grahas to ease the hardship of an unfavourable placement. A hymn that names a planet, such as the one to Mangala, sits with the planets. Within a group the hymns are in alphabetical order, and each row says in a line what the hymn is.

A stotra is a hymn of praise. A shatanamavali, or ashtottara shatanamavali, is a litany of one hundred and eight names. Namah means "I bow" and Om is the sacred syllable that opens a name. A Purana is one of the old Sanskrit works of sacred stories and teaching, such as the Devi Bhagavata, the Narada and the Skanda. A graha is one of the nine planets of Hindu astrology, and Pradosha is the twilight of the thirteenth lunar day, a time sacred to Shiva.