Stotras
A stotra is read whole, not chapter by chapter — so each one is set out here as a single document: the received Sanskrit with a transliteration, our own English and Hindi beside it, and the meaning of each notable word underneath. Every text names its author, its lineage, its metre and the edition its reading follows; a variant in that edition is printed and flagged, never quietly resolved.
Kashmir Śaivism · Trika · c. 993 CE
भैरवस्तवः
Bhairava Stava — Ten verses of Abhinavagupta
Ten verses in which Abhinavagupta stops arguing and simply speaks: the Tantrāloka takes thirty-seven chapters to establish that consciousness is not other than Bhairava, and this hymn takes forty lines.
- Author
- Abhinavagupta
- Verses
- 10
- Metre
- upajāti / dodhaka
- Period
- c. 993 CE
Mahābhārata · Anuśāsana Parva 149
श्रीविष्णुसहस्रनामस्तोत्रम्
Vishnu Sahasranama — The thousand names of Viṣṇu
On the bed of arrows, asked by Yudhishthira what one thing a person should praise to find every good, Bhishma answers with this: a hymn of Vishnu's thousand names, arranged as 108 verses reciting who he is under every name there is.
- Author
- Bhishma (as spoken to Yudhishthira)
- Verses
- 108
- Metre
- anuṣṭubh
- Period
- Mahābhārata era (traditional)