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Sanskrit hymns of praise (
stotra/
stuti/
stava) have been popular and influential within multiple religious traditions for thousands of years. Sanskrit hymns remain lively, meaningful parts of the religious lives of countless Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains today, and new
stotras continue to be composed and recited around the world. The academic study of these hymns has made notable progress in recent decades as scholars have paid increasing attention to such compositions.
This book brings together new scholarship by eleven scholars for the first such volume focused on this major genre of religious literature. Central themes of the volume include the
stotra genre itself, the role of such hymns of praise in ritual and performative contexts (including liturgy and preaching), and the public and polemical dimensions of such hymns across traditions. The chapters dwell on theoretical, methodological, and comparative concerns, and they contain original translations of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain
stotras.
A valuable pedagogical resource for educators teaching about Asian religions and literature, especially in comparative contexts, this book also establishes the foundation for future research and scholarship on a genre of religious poetry popular across South Asian religious traditions.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Studying
Stotras across Traditions
Part One: On the Stotra Genre 2. Navigating an Ocean of Hymns: Popular Anthologies and the Study of Sanskrit
Stotras
3. An Epistemology of
Stotra: Hemacandra's Understanding of the Hymnic Genre through His
Mah¿deva Stotra 4. Praise-Poems in K¿¿¿a Temples and Royal Courts:
Virud¿val¿ as
Stotra and
PräastiPart Two: Recitation, Liturgy, and Preaching 5. The Jain Hymn of Undying Devotion: An Annotated Translation of the
Bhakt¿mara Stotra of M¿natu¿ga
6. History, Supernormal Powers, and Liturgy: Jain Sets of
Stotras
7. Praise You as I Should:
Stotras and the
Dharma-Preacher (
Dharmabh¿¿aka) in Mah¿y¿na Buddhist
S¿tras
8.
Stotra as
Mantra and Materiality: The Case of Budha-Käika's
R¿marak¿¿stotra Part Three: Polemics and Publics: Stotras between and across Traditions9. Receptiveness, Assertion, and Subversion in Sectarian Spaces: Appayya D¿k¿ita, Madhus¿dana Sarasvat¿, and Engagement across Traditions
10. When Haradatta Met K¿re¿a: Printed
Stotras and the Public Memory of Sectarian Figures in India between the Seventeenth and Twentieth Centuries
11. Colonial-Era Engagements with the
Stotra Genre: Bh¿ratendu Hari¿candra's
S¿t¿vallabhastotra Epilogue12.
Stotra Musings: Shared and Contested Spaces of the Praise Poem across Traditions
About the author
Hamsa Stainton is Associate Professor in the School of Religious Studies at McGill University (Montréal, Canada). He is the author of
Poetry as Prayer in the Sanskrit Hymns of Kashmir (2019) and co-editor (with Bettina Sharada Bäumer) of
Tantrapüp¿ñjali: Tantric Traditions and Philosophy of Kashmir; Studies in Memory of Pandit H.N. Chakravarty.
Anna Lee White is Lecturer in the Humanities Department of Marianopolis College (Montréal, Canada). Her research interests include Hindu devotional literature, hagiographies, and gender studies.
