Download or read book Poetry as Prayer in the Sanskrit Hymns of Kashmir written by Hamsa Stainton and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historically, Kashmir was one of the most dynamic and influential centers of Sanskrit learning and literary production in South Asia. In this text, Hamsa Stainton investigates the close connection between poetry and prayer in South Asia by studying the history of Sanskrit hymns of praise (stotras) in Kashmir. It provides a broad introduction to the history and general features of the stotra genre, and charts the course of these literary hymns in Kashmir from the ninth century to the present. In particular, it offers the first study in any European language of the Stutikusumanjali, a major work of religious literature dedicated to the god Siva and one of the only extant witnesses to the trajectory of Sanskrit literary culture in fourteenth-century Kashmir.