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Stainton presents a stunning panorama of 1200 years of religious poetry in Kashmir, one of India's greatest centers of letters and thought. These stotras are often breathtakingly complex and showcase intricate theologies, immense personal devotion, and also rich and evolving aesthetic ideals. No bookshelf dedicated to religion and literature in South Asia will be complete without Poetry as Prayer. * Yigal Bronner,The Hebrew University of Jerusalem * In this masterful book, Hamsa Stainton trains his eye on a brilliant jewel in the crown of Hindu literary and performance traditions-the stotra, a short poem of prayer and praise. Prominent for centuries and throughout all of India, and an important bridge between Sanskrit and many vernaculars, the stotra has nonetheless remained a puzzle to critics precisely because it is so versatile, so many-faceted. Stainton brings this jewel center-stage, burnishing it with English verse translations that glow. * Jack Stratton Hawley, author of A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement * This is a truly ground-breaking work of scholarship on the stotra literature of Kashmir. With clear translations and insightful readings throughout, Stainton vividly demonstrates the importance of Sanskrit as a language of bhakti or devotion. This volume also offers a welcome troubling of the sharp scholarly divide between courtly poetry (kavya) and religious literature, and makes a compelling argument for the value of 'prayer' as a cross-cultural category of analysis. * Anne Monius, Professor of South Asian Religions, Harvard Divinity School *

"""This is a truly ground-breaking work of scholarship on the stotra literature of Kashmir. With clear translations and insightful readings throughout, Stainton vividly demonstrates the importance of Sanskrit as a language of bhakti or devotion. This volume also offers a welcome troubling of the sharp scholarly divide between courtly poetry (k=avya) and religious literature, and makes a compelling argument for the value of 'prayer' as a cross-cultural category of analysis."" --Anne Monius, Professor of South Asian Religions, Harvard Divinity School ""In this masterful book, Hamsa Stainton trains his eye on a brilliant jewel in the crown of Hindu literary and performance traditions-the stotra, a short poem of prayer and praise. Prominent for centuries and throughout all of India, and an important bridge between Sanskrit and many vernaculars, the stotra has nonetheless remained a puzzle to critics precisely because it is so versatile, so many-faceted. Stainton brings this jewel center-stage, burnishing it with English verse translations that glow."" -- Jack Stratton Hawley, author of A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement ""Stainton presents a stunning panorama of 1200 years of religious poetry in Kashmir, one of India's greatest centers of letters and thought. These stotras are often breathtakingly complex and showcase intricate theologies, immense personal devotion, and also rich and evolving aesthetic ideals. No bookshelf dedicated to religion and literature in South Asia will be complete without Poetry as Prayer."" --Yigal Bronner, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem"

""This is a truly ground-breaking work of scholarship on the stotra literature of Kashmir. With clear translations and insightful readings throughout, Stainton vividly demonstrates the importance of Sanskrit as a language of bhakti or devotion. This volume also offers a welcome troubling of the sharp scholarly divide between courtly poetry (k=avya) and religious literature, and makes a compelling argument for the value of 'prayer' as a cross-cultural category of analysis."" --Anne Monius, Professor of South Asian Religions, Harvard Divinity School ""In this masterful book, Hamsa Stainton trains his eye on a brilliant jewel in the crown of Hindu literary and performance traditions-the stotra, a short poem of prayer and praise. Prominent for centuries and throughout all of India, and an important bridge between Sanskrit and many vernaculars, the stotra has nonetheless remained a puzzle to critics precisely because it is so versatile, so many-faceted. Stainton brings this jewel center-stage, burnishing it with English verse translations that glow."" -- Jack Stratton Hawley, author of A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement ""Stainton presents a stunning panorama of 1200 years of religious poetry in Kashmir, one of India's greatest centers of letters and thought. These stotras are often breathtakingly complex and showcase intricate theologies, immense personal devotion, and also rich and evolving aesthetic ideals. No bookshelf dedicated to religion and literature in South Asia will be complete without Poetry as Prayer."" --Yigal Bronner, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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Hamsa Stainton is Assistant Professor in the School of Religious Studies at McGill University. He studied South Asian religions at Columbia University (Ph.D., 2013), Harvard Divinity School (M.T.S., 2007), and Cornell University (B.A., 2004). His co-edited volume (with Bettina Sharada Bäumer), Tantrapuspañjali: Tantric Traditions and Philosophy of Kashmir; Studies in Memory of Pandit H.N. Chakravarty, was published in 2018 by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

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