Colonial-Era Engagements with the Stotra Genre

This chapter examines a Sanskrit stotra written by Bhāratendu Hariścandra in Varanasi in 1879 called the Sītāvallabhastotra . The hymn was written after Hariścandra’s trip to Janakpur in southern Nepal, a place that had recently been identified as the site of ancient Mithilā by the Rām Rasik branch of the Rāmānandī sampradāy . Hariścandra is known as the “father of Hindi literature” and was affiliated with the Vallabha sampradāy , a popular bhakti community devoted to Kṛṣṇa. He composed several devotional poems about Kṛṣṇa in Hindi and Urdu. However, the Sītāvallabhastotra focuses on Sītā and her sakhī s (“female friends,” “maidservants,” or “attendants”). As Hariścandra worked to further his project of unifying Hindus in a broadly Vaiṣṇava religiosity and promoting Indian nationalism during the colonial period, he capitalized on the popularity of the stotra genre and its associations with emotional expression.