[INDOLOGY] Publication announcement: Sanskrit Hymns Across Traditions: Studying Stotras

[Hamsa Stainton]

Dear friends and colleagues (with apologies for cross-listing),



We are delighted to share that our edited volume, *Sanskrit Hymns Across
Traditions: Studying Stotras*
<https://www.routledge.com/Sanskrit-Hymns-Across-Traditions-Studying-Stotras/Stainton-White/p/book/9781032976709>,
was recently published in the Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and
Philosophy Book Series.



Most of the contributors are members of the Indology listserv and we have
benefited greatly from feedback from many of you over the years, both
online and in contexts like the South Asia conferences in Madison. Thank
you!



We’ll share the book description and table of contents below. We hope it’s
useful in your research and teaching, and please consider asking your
libraries to add it to their collections.



Best wishes,

Hamsa Stainton and Anna Lee White





*Publication Announcement:*



*Sanskrit Hymns Across Traditions: Studying Stotras*

Edited by Hamsa Stainton & Anna Lee White

Routledge, 2026

284 Pages, 13 B/W Illustrations

ISBN 9781032976709

Website:
https://www.routledge.com/Sanskrit-Hymns-Across-Traditions-Studying-Stotras/Stainton-White/p/book/9781032976709


[image: cover for Sanskrit Hymns Across Traditions .jpg]



Description:



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 *stotra*s 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 *stotra*s.



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.





Table of Contents:



1. Introduction: Studying *Stotra*s Across Traditions (Hamsa Stainton)



*Part One: On the Stotra Genre*



2. Navigating an Ocean of Hymns: Popular Anthologies and the Study of
Sanskrit *Stotra*s (Hamsa Stainton)



3. An Epistemology of *Stotra*: Hemacandra’s Understanding of the Hymnic
Genre through His *Mahādeva Stotra *(Lynna R. Dhanani)



4. Praise-Poems in Kṛṣṇa Temples and Royal Courts: *Virudāvalī* as *Stotra *
and *Praśasti *(David Buchta)



*Part Two: Recitation, Liturgy, and Preaching*



5. The Jain Hymn of Undying Devotion: An Annotated Translation of the
*Bhaktāmara* *Stotra* of Mānatuṅga (Steven M. Vose)



6. History, Supernormal Powers, and Liturgy: Jain Sets of *Stotra*s (John
E. Cort)



7. Praise You as I Should: *Stotra*s and the *Dharma*-Preacher (
*Dharmabhāṇaka*) in Mahāyāna Buddhist *Sūtra*s (Ralph H. Craig III)



8. *Stotra *as *Mantra* and Materiality: The Case of Budha-Kauśika’s
*Rāmarakṣāstotra *(Gudrun Bühnemann)



*Part Three: Polemics and Publics: Stotras Between and Across Traditions*



9. Receptiveness, Assertion, and Subversion in Sectarian Spaces: Appayya
Dīkṣita, Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, and Engagement Across Traditions (Matthew
Leveille)



10. When Haradatta Met Kūreśa: Printed *Stotra*s and the Public Memory of
Sectarian Figures in India between the Seventeenth and Twentieth Centuries
(Vishal Sharma)



11. Colonial-Era Engagements with the *Stotra *Genre: Bhāratendu
Hariścandra’s *Sītāvallabhastotra *(Anna Lee White)



*Epilogue*



12. *Stotra* Musings: Shared and Contested Spaces of the Praise Poem Across
Traditions (Steven P. Hopkins)





Editors:



*Hamsa Stainton* is an 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 *Tantrapuṣpāñjali: Tantric Traditions and
Philosophy of Kashmir; Studies in Memory of Pandit H.N. Chakravarty*.

*Anna Lee White *is a Lecturer in the Humanities Department of Marianopolis
College (Montréal, Canada). Her research interests include Hindu devotional
literature, hagiographies, and gender studies.
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