Krishna Ashtottara Shatanama Stotram

He opens simply as Krishna, and as Kamalanatha, lord of Lakshmi who dwells on the lotus. Vasudeva names him both as Vasudeva's son and as the one being who pervades everything. Sanatana means without beginning or end. Lilamanushavigraha is the idea that the human body he wore in Vraj was never a limitation on him, it was a role he stepped into for the pure joy of it.

He wears the Srivatsa mark and the Kaustubha jewel, and Yashoda's affection for him as her own child is written straight into his name here. Hari, one who takes away sorrow, sits beside the four-armed form that carries discus, sword, mace, conch and lotus, his full divine bearing showing through the cowherd boy.

Two mothers claim him in this verse, Devaki who bore him and Nanda's household that raised him as its most cherished son. Yamunavegasamhari recalls the time he calmed the Yamuna's dangerous flood as a boy, and the verse ends by placing him as the younger, deeply loved brother of Balabhadra.

This is the infant Krishna already at work, ending the demoness Putana who came to nurse him with poison, and kicking apart the cart-demon Shakatasura. Even that early he was filling every home in Nanda's Vraj with happiness, and Sacchidanandavigraha reminds the reader that under the baby's form is a being made of pure existence, awareness and bliss.

Three names in a row circle back to butter, his limbs smeared with it, his sinless delight in stealing and dancing over it, his constant fondness for a fresh helping of it, the domestic, funny side of Krishna that every Vraj story leans on. The verse then jumps centuries ahead to Muchukunda, the sleeping sage-king he woke and freed with a single glance.

Here the stotram moves to his Dwaraka life as lord of sixteen thousand queens, and to the tribhanga stance, the gentle three-bend posture in which he is so often pictured. Shukavagamritabdhindu is a lovely image, the moon rising over the nectar-ocean of the sage Shuka's words, a nod to the Bhagavata Purana itself. Govinda, protector of cows and the earth, and lord of yogis close the verse.

Vatsavatacharananta calls him limitless even while he wandered the calf-pastures as an ordinary boy. The rest of the verse is three demon-slaying feats from that same childhood, breaking the donkey-demon Dhenukasura, reducing the whirlwind Trinavarta to nothing, and felling the twin Arjuna trees while dragging the mortar tied around his waist, which freed the two cursed sons of Kubera bound inside them.

Uttalatalabhetta remembers the tall palm tree he brought down in the same episode as Dhenukasura. Tamalashyamalakriti simply admires his colour, dark and handsome as a tamala tree. He is then named lord of the cowherds and the gopis, a yogi in his own right, and, in the same breath, as brilliant as ten million suns, the form Arjuna saw in the Gita.

Ilapati names him lord of the earth, and Param Jyotih the supreme light behind everything. Yadavendra and Yadudvaha place him as the head and pillar of the Yadu line. Vanamali and Pitavasa picture him as he is usually shown, garlanded with forest flowers and dressed in yellow silk, and the verse ends with the day he carried the Parijata tree down from heaven for Satyabhama.

The most famous feat of his youth opens this verse, lifting Govardhana hill to shelter Vraj from Indra's storm. Gopala and Sarvapalaka widen that protecting role from cows to all beings. Aja, the unborn, and Niranjana, untouched by any flaw, are his deeper nature, while Kamajanaka and Kanjalochana, father of Kama and lotus-eyed, bring the verse back to something warmly human.

Madhuha, slayer of the demon Madhu, sits alongside his two seats of rule, Mathura and Dwaraka. Vrindavanantasanchari keeps his feet in Vraj even as the verse names him a king elsewhere, and Tulasidamabhushana, adorned with a tulasi garland, is the mark every image of him carries.

Syamantakamaneharta recalls the jewel dispute he untangled at Dwaraka, clearing his own name and winning Satyabhama's hand in the process. He is one with the sage-pair Nara-Narayana, and Kubjakrishnambaradhara notes the fine cloth Kubja, the hunchbacked woman he straightened at Mathura, gave him out of gratitude. Mayi and Paramapurusha then step back to his mastery over illusion and his standing as the supreme being.

This verse is a run of victories: skill in the wrestling bout against Kamsa's champions Mushtika and Chanura, then Kamsari and Murari, foe of Kamsa and foe of the demon Mura, and Narakantaka, who ended the demon Naraka. Samsaravairi widens the same idea, he is the adversary of the whole cycle of worldly bondage, not only of individual demons.

Anadibrahmachari holds that he is pure from beginningless time itself. Krishnavyasanakarshaka points at his defence of Draupadi, called Krishnaa, when she was in distress in the Kaurava court. The verse then names two decisive acts, ending Shishupala's abuses with a single stroke, and bringing Duryodhana's entire line to its close through the Mahabharata war.

He is a giver of grace to both Vidura and Akrura, two very different devotees who each received his warmth. Vishvarupapradarshaka is the day he showed his universal form, most famously to Arjuna in the Gita. Satyavak and Satyasankalpa say his word and his will are never empty, and the verse closes on his love for Satyabhama and his unbroken record as Jayi, the victor.

He is Subhadra's elder brother, Vishnu himself, and the one who stood by Bhishma's side and granted him release at the very end of his life on the bed of arrows. Jagadguru and Jagannatho name him teacher and lord of the universe, and Venunadavisharada brings it back down to something intimate, his mastery over the sound of his own flute.

Two more demons fall in this verse, the bull-demon Vrishabhasura and Banasura, whose thousand arms he cut down to size in defence of his grandson Aniruddha. Yudhishthirapratishthata credits him with setting Yudhishthira firmly on his throne after the war, and the verse ends on the gentle, familiar image of the peacock feather he wears as a crown.

Parthasarathi, Arjuna's charioteer, is one of his best-loved names, and Avyakta reminds us that behind the charioteer's seat is the unmanifest source of everything. Gitamritamahodadhi calls the Gita itself a great ocean of nectar. The verse closes with a striking picture, his lotus feet reddened by the jewels on the hoods of the serpent Kaliya, whom he subdued by dancing on him in the Yamuna.

Damodara recalls mother Yashoda tying him at the waist with a rope, a childhood memory turned into a name for the supreme being. Yajnabhokta names him the true recipient of every sacrifice offered anywhere, and Danavendravinashaka his role against the chief of the demons. Narayana and Parabrahma state his ultimate identity plainly, and Pannagashanavahana names him as one carried by Garuda, the devourer of serpents.

This verse points to the well-known episode of the gopis bathing in the Yamuna, their garments taken from the riverbank while they played in the water, a story the Bhagavata itself frames as a lesson in surrender rather than mischief for its own sake. Punyashloka and Tirthapada say he is praised in sacred verse and that his very feet are a place of pilgrimage, while Vedavedya and Dayanidhi call him knowable through the Vedas and an ocean of compassion.

The stotram closes on three vast titles, the essence of every place of pilgrimage, the very form behind every planet, and greater than the greatest. The verse then names itself, stating plainly that what has just been recited are the hundred and eight names of the lord Sri Krishna.