Which Stotra Should You Learn First? An Order for Adults

Most adults who decide to learn a stotra properly start with the one they have heard most, or the most impressive one: the Śiva Tāṇḍava, or the thousand names of the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma. Many of them stop partway through, and conclude that Sanskrit is hard.

The language was not the problem; the order was. A first stotra should be one you can finish, recite without the sheet, and understand word by word. Once one stotra sits right, the next is much easier, because the sounds and the rhythms carry over. This post gives an order that works for adults, the five sounds that most people get wrong, and a way to practise that fits into fifteen minutes a day.

Four tests for a first stotra

1. It is short. Five to eight verses, not dozens. Finishing matters more than ambition: a stotra you can say from beginning to end teaches you more than a third of a long one.
2. Its metre is easy to hear. Every stotra is in a metre, a fixed pattern of long and short syllables, and the metre is where its tune comes from. The easiest is the anuṣṭubh, four quarters of eight syllables, the metre of most verses of the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and the Gītā.
3. It has a refrain. Many short stotras end every verse with the same line. That line is learned once, and a quarter of every verse after it comes free.
4. You will say it often. If you already recite a stotra at home, start there: you know its tune, and you will hear it again and again.

An order that works

The six below are the six taught on our stotras course for adults, put in the order that suits a first-time learner. Each step adds one new thing: a longer text, a new metre, or harder words.

1. A two-line verse: Vakratuṇḍa mahākāya

Thirty-two syllables in four quarters of eight: a complete anuṣṭubh verse, and one almost everyone has heard. Learn it a quarter at a time and notice where each quarter ends. That one habit, hearing the four quarters, is what makes every longer stotra manageable.

2. Five verses built on a name: the Śiva Pañcākṣara Stotram

Traditionally attributed to Ādi Śaṅkara. Each of its five verses is built on one syllable of the five-syllable phrase na-maḥ-śi-vā-ya, and each ends with the same line, changing by one syllable:

The next verse ends ma-kārāya, then śi-kārāya, va-kārāya and ya-kārāya. The structure is a memory aid in itself: once you know the phrase, you know the order of the verses.

3. Eight short verses with a refrain: the Mahālakṣmyaṣṭakam

Back to the easy anuṣṭubh, now for eight verses, and every one ends महालक्ष्मि नमोऽस्तु ते. It also teaches a piece of grammar you will meet in almost every stotra: the vocative, the form used to address someone. The goddess is Mahālakṣmī, with a long ī, but spoken to she is mahālakṣmi, with a short one. Saying it with the long vowel is an easy slip to make.

4. A new metre, and a verse of names: the Acyutāṣṭakam

Traditionally attributed to Ādi Śaṅkara. Its metre, the sragviṇī, is long-short-long four times a line, a rocking rhythm that is easy to feel once you tap it out. The first verse is a string of names, every one ending in -m because it is the object of a verb that does not arrive until the end of the verse: bhaje, “I worship”. Seeing that is the moment a stotra stops being a sequence of sounds and becomes a sentence.

5. Harder words, the same refrain: the Nirvāṇa Ṣaṭkam

Traditionally attributed to Ādi Śaṅkara. Six verses in the bhujaṅgaprayāta metre, short-long-long four times a line, and every verse closes with the line above. The words are harder than in the earlier stotras (mind, intellect, the senses, the elements), but the verses work by negation, “I am not this, nor this”, so the grammar is simple once the vocabulary is learned.

6. The faster metres: the Gaṇeśa Pañcaratnam and the Bhaktāmara

Last come the two metres that take longest to hear. The Gaṇeśa Pañcaratnam, traditionally attributed to Ādi Śaṅkara, is in the pañcacāmara: sixteen syllables a line, short-long, short-long, recited briskly. It opens मुदाकरात्तमोदकं (mudā karātta-modakaṁ). Selected verses of the Bhaktāmara Stotra, by Mānatuṅga, are in the vasantatilakā, fourteen syllables in an uneven pattern that most learners need to tap out many times before it sits right.

Why the Śiva Tāṇḍava comes later

The Śiva Tāṇḍava Stotram is in the same metre as the Gaṇeśa Pañcaratnam, but it is much longer, and its lines are built of long compounds recited at speed. Its first line is a single compound of sixteen syllables:

Taken first, it asks a beginner to learn a new rhythm, new sounds and very long words all at once. Taken after the five verses of the Pañcaratnam, the rhythm is already in place and what is left is the words. The same goes for the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma: its metre is the easy anuṣṭubh, but it is long, and it goes better in sections once a short stotra is secure.

Five sounds most people get wrong

These five account for most of the mistakes in stotras recited from memory. They are also why a careful transliteration, or Devanagari, is better than a rough English spelling: “shiva” and “vishnu” hide two different sounds behind the same “sh”.

1. Long and short vowels. a and ā, i and ī, u and ū are different sounds, and a long vowel takes twice the time of a short one. Length is part of the word and part of the metre: in śi-vā-ya, the middle syllable is held for two beats.
2. Three s sounds. ś is the “sh” of “ship”, as in śiva. ṣ is said with the tongue curled back, as in viṣṇu and ṣaṭkam. s is a plain s, as in sarva.
3. The nasal dot (anusvāra). The dot above a letter, ं, is a nasal that takes its colour from the sound after it: before k it is close to the “ng” of “sing”, before p close to an m. At a pause it is a plain m. That is why the Acyutāṣṭakam writes अच्युतं केशवं with dots inside the line, but हरिम् with a full m where the half-verse stops.
4. The visarga. The two dots after a syllable, ः, written ḥ, are a light breath after the vowel, often with a faint echo of it. It is not dropped: namaḥ is not nama.
5. The avagraha. The sign ऽ marks a short a that has merged into the vowel before it, and it is not said. नमस्तेऽस्तु is namas te ’stu, said “namaste-stu”, not “namaste astu”; शिवोऽहम् is said “śivoham”.

How to practise in fifteen minutes a day

1. One quarter at a time. Learn a quarter, then two quarters, then the half-verse, then the whole verse. Do not move on until the last step comes out without the sheet.
2. Tap the metre. One short tap for a short syllable, a held tap for a long one. When a line feels wrong, the tapping usually shows the syllable you dropped or stretched.
3. Slowly first. Say each verse slowly enough to get every sound right, and let the speed come later. Speed learned on wrong sounds is very hard to undo.
4. Learn the meaning alongside. Knowing that bhaje means “I worship”, or that na ca means “nor”, fixes the words in place better than repetition alone.
5. Have someone listen. Most slips are ones you cannot hear in your own voice, and recordings online vary a great deal in care.

For children, the order is different, and shorter prayers come first: see which shloka a child should learn first. Children learn them in our online shloka classes for kids, and the Gītā in Bhagavad Gita classes for kids.

Questions people ask

Which stotra is easiest to learn first?

A short one in the anushtubh metre with a refrain, such as the Mahalakshmi Ashtakam, or the five verses of the Shiva Panchakshara Stotram, where the last line of every verse changes by one syllable. If you already say a stotra at home, start with that one: you know its tune.

Do I need to know Sanskrit to learn a stotra?

No. A transliteration lets you read it and a word-by-word translation tells you what it says. Reading Devanagari, or a careful transliteration with its accent marks, helps, because it shows the long vowels and the three s sounds that a rough English spelling hides.

Is reciting a stotra the same as Vedic chanting?

No. Stotras are classical Sanskrit verse, recited without the Vedic pitch accents (svara). Their tune comes from the metre: the pattern of long and short syllables in each line.

Why is the Shiva Tandava Stotram hard to learn?

It is long, and its lines are built of long compounds recited fast in the panchachamara metre, sixteen syllables of short-long, short-long. Learn that rhythm first on a short stotra in the same metre, such as the Ganesha Pancharatnam, and the Tandava becomes a matter of words rather than rhythm.

How do I know if I am pronouncing a stotra correctly?

Check the five sounds most people get wrong: long and short vowels, the three s sounds, the nasal dot (anusvara), the visarga and the avagraha. Then have someone who knows the sounds listen to you recite, because most slips are ones you cannot hear in your own voice.