Stotra as Mantra and Materiality

The chapter presents new research on Budha-Kauika's Rmarakstotra (Hymn to Rma for protection), expanding on a monograph published by the author in 1983, which was translated into Marathi in 2007 and reprinted in 2010. It explores the continuing popularity of the stotra in Maharashtra and parts of North India, as evidenced by collective recitations and artistic practices. The latter include engraving the text on wood, inscribing it onto ritual diagrams ( yantra s), and weaving a significant verse of the hymn into a cloth used in ritual. The chapter demonstrates how not only individual verses but the entire stotra came to be regarded as a mantra —a sacred utterance and potent formula of divine origin. Much like traditional mantra s that derive their efficacy through repetition, the stotra is recited a prescribed number of times to activate its efficacy. A specific verse is repeatedly woven into a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century Baluchari silk shawl from West Bengal, a garment likely believed to serve as protective armor for the wearer—akin to the protection invoked by reciting the stotra .