Introduction Page 1 of 29 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2019. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. Subscriber: McGill University; date: 11 December 2019 Poetry as Prayer in the Sanskrit Hymns of Kashmir Hamsa Stainton Print publication date: 2019 Print ISBN-13: 9780190889814 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2019 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190889814.001.0001 Introduction Hamsa Stainton DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190889814.003.0001 Abstract and Keywords This chapter frames the present study of Sanskrit hymns of praise from Kashmir in terms of the relationship between poetic and religious expression in South Asia. It introduces and discusses six key elements that weave throughout the book: the genre known as the stotra (hymn of praise); poetry (kāvya); poetics (alaṅkāraśāstra); prayer; bhakti (devotion); and the region of Kashmir, including the major contours of its religious and literary history. In doing so, the chapter summarizes the central themes of the book and establishes the context for analyzing poetry as prayer. It concludes by reviewing the contents and organization of the book. Keywords: stotra, hymn of praise, Sanskrit, poetry, kāvya, poetics, prayer, bhakti, Kashmir, Śaivism In India it is not true that all poetry is religious, nor that all religious expression takes the form of poetry; yet the relationship between the two is an especially close one. NORMAN CUTLER 1 THE CLOSE RELATIONSHIP between poetic and religious expression has been a widespread phenomenon across religious traditions, regions, and time periods in South Asia. There is a special appeal to making prayer poetic, and using poetry for prayer. Norman Cutler makes this observation in his work on the poetics of Tamil devotion, but it is just as true in the case of Sanskrit and other languages.