The Bhaktamar Stotra, Verse by Verse

The Bhaktamar Stotra is the most beloved devotional hymn in the Jain tradition: forty-eight verses (forty-four in the Shvetambara recension) in flowing Vasantatilaka meter, composed by Acharya Manatunga in praise of Rishabhanatha, the first Tirthankara. Tradition tells that Manatunga, chained and locked away by a skeptical king, recited the hymn and a chain broke with every verse.

This series studies the stotra one verse at a time: the exact Sanskrit, a careful transliteration, the meaning, and the uses tradition has attached to each verse. A few honest notes that frame every article in the series:

• The legend has versions. The king is named Bhoja, Vriddhabhoja, or Harsha depending on the teller; the chains number 48 or 44 by sect. We tell the story as a story.
• Date: scholars place the composition around the 6th-7th century CE; estimates have varied widely, and the earliest surviving commentary (Gunakara’s) is from the 14th century.
• 44 vs 48 verses, and exactly where they diverge. Verses 1 to 31 are identical in both recensions and carry the same numbers. The four stanzas at issue are numbers 32, 33, 34 and 35 in the 48-verse numbering, and they complete the description of the eight pratiharyas with the divine drum, the flower shower, the halo and the divine speech. The Shvetambara recension does not carry them in the body of the hymn; editions that print them place them in an appendix. From there the numbering runs four apart for the rest of the poem: Digambara 36 is Shvetambara 32, Digambara 37 is Shvetambara 33, and so on to Digambara 48, which is Shvetambara 44. That mapping follows Jainpedia, which places the four extra stanzas between 31 and 36 and assigns those four pratiharyas to them, and the English Wikipedia article, which identifies the same four by number. The oldest known manuscript (1332 CE, Patan) has 44; the Digambara tradition’s consistent 48-yantra practice argues for 48. Neither recension is wrong and neither is a corruption of the other; they are two lines of transmission of the same hymn, and we present both without declaring a winner.
• Mantras and yantras vary. Each verse carries an associated riddhi-mantra and yantra in the ritual tradition, but the manuals differ. Where we quote a riddhi or mantra, we cite which modern tradition it comes from; none of it is canonical scripture. Where we could not verify one against two independent sources, we leave a gap rather than fill it, and say so on the page.
• The uses assigned to verses also vary. Two widely circulated modern lists agree on some verses and disagree on others. Where they disagree we print both readings and identify each, rather than choosing the tidier one.
• Bhaktamar is not a planetary remedy text. The verse-by-verse healing tradition maps verses to life difficulties, not to grahas; Jain graha-shanti uses a separate Navagraha Shanti Stotra. Anyone telling you “verse X fixes Saturn” is innovating, not transmitting.

The verses

All forty-eight are published. The series is complete. Each was collated against multiple editions before it was written up. Numbering on these pages follows the Digambara 48-verse recension, and from verse 32 onward every page states what the same stanza is called in the Shvetambara 44-verse recension, or that the Shvetambara recension does not carry it.

1. Verse 1: The Feet That Light the Crowns of Gods: bhaktāmara-praṇata-mauli
2. Verse 2: When the Small Voice Dares to Sing: yaḥ saṁstutaḥ sakala-vāṅmaya
3. Verse 3: The Child Who Reaches for the Moon in Water: buddhyā vināpi vibudhārcita
4. Verse 4: The Ocean No Arms Can Cross: vaktuṁ guṇān guṇa-samudra
5. Verse 5: The Doe Who Turns to Face the Lion: so’haṁ tathāpi tava bhakti
6. Verse 6: The Cuckoo Knows Nothing About Music: alpa-śrutaṁ śrutavatāṁ
7. Verse 7: What Light Does to Darkness: tvat-saṁstavena bhava-santati
8. Verse 8: The Water Drop That Looks Like a Pearl: matveti nātha tava saṁstavanaṁ
9. Verse 9: The Sun Never Comes to the Pond: āstāṁ tava stavanam asta
10. Verse 10: Praise That Makes the Praiser Equal: nātyadbhutaṁ bhuvana-bhūṣaṇa
11. Verse 11: After the Milk Ocean, Who Wants Brine: dṛṣṭvā bhavantam animeṣa
12. Verse 12: The Atoms Ran Out: yaiḥ śānta-rāga-rucibhiḥ
13. Verse 13: The Moon Only Works at Night: vaktraṁ kva te sura-naroraga
14. Verse 14: Virtues That Cross Every Border: sampūrṇa-maṇḍala-śaśāṅka
15. Verse 15: A Mountain Does Not Resist the Wind: citraṁ kim atra yadi te
16. Verse 16: A Lamp with No Smoke and No Oil: nirdhūma-vartir apavarjita
17. Verse 17: Three Ways a Sun Can Fail: nāstaṁ kadācid upayāsi
18. Verse 18: A Moon with No Precedent: nityodayaṁ dalita-moha
19. Verse 19: When the Rice Is Already Ripe: kiṁ śarvarīṣu śaśinā
20. Verse 20: The Glass Shard Also Catches Light: jñānaṁ yathā tvayi vibhāti
21. Verse 21: Glad to Have Looked Elsewhere First: manye varaṁ hari-harādaya
22. Verse 22: Every Direction Has Stars: strīṇāṁ śatāni śataśo
23. Verse 23: The Verse That Quotes an Upanishad: tvām āmananti munayaḥ
24. Verse 24: Many and One at the Same Time: tvām avyayaṁ vibhum acintyam
25. Verse 25: You Are the Buddha, and Shankara: buddhas tvam eva vibudhārcita
26. Verse 26: Four Salutations and No Argument: tubhyaṁ namas tribhuvanārti
27. Verse 27: The Faults Never Even Looked: ko vismayo’tra yadi nāma
28. Verse 28: The Sun Standing Beside a Cloud: uccair aśoka-taru-saṁśritam
29. Verse 29: A Lion Throne With No Lion: siṁhāsane maṇi-mayūkha
30. Verse 30: The Only Thing in the Scene That Moves: kundāvadāta-cala-cāmara
31. Verse 31: Three Umbrellas and a Shut-Out Sun: chatra-trayaṁ tava vibhāti
32. Verse 32: A Drum Nobody Is Beating: gambhīra-tāra-rava-pūrita · Digambara only
33. Verse 33: The Shower That Turns Into Speech: mandāra-sundara-nameru · Digambara only
34. Verse 34: A Light That Beats the Day and the Night: śumbhat-prabhā-valaya-bhūri · Digambara only
35. Verse 35: One Sound, Every Language: svargāpavarga-gama-mārga · Digambara only
36. Verse 36: Gold Lotuses Laid Under the Feet: unnidra-hema-nava-paṅkaja · Shvetambara 32
37. Verse 37: The Planets Are Shining Too: itthaṁ yathā tava vibhūtir · Shvetambara 33
38. Verse 38: The Elephant Coming Straight at You: ścyotan-madāvila-vilola · Shvetambara 34
39. Verse 39: The Lion That Does Not Take the Next Step: bhinnebha-kumbha-galad-ujjvala · Shvetambara 35
40. Verse 40: A Name That Behaves Like Water: kalpānta-kāla-pavanoddhata · Shvetambara 36
41. Verse 41: The Herb Kept in the Heart: raktekṣaṇaṁ samada-kokila · Shvetambara 37
42. Verse 42: An Army Behaves Like Darkness: valgat-turaṅga-gaja-garjita · Shvetambara 38
43. Verse 43: The River the Soldiers Try to Cross: kuntāgra-bhinna-gaja-śoṇita · Shvetambara 39
44. Verse 44: The Sea Is Not Calmed: ambhonidhau kṣubhita-bhīṣaṇa · Shvetambara 40
45. Verse 45: The Dust Called Nectar: udbhūta-bhīṣaṇa-jalodara · Shvetambara 41
46. Verse 46: Free of the Fear, Not the Chains: āpāda-kaṇṭham uru-śṛṅkhala · Shvetambara 42
47. Verse 47: Fear Itself Takes Fright: matta-dvipendra-mṛga-rāja · Shvetambara 43
48. Verse 48: The Name in the Last Line: stotra-srajaṁ tava jinendra · Shvetambara 44

Verses 28 to 35 describe the eight pratiharyas one to a stanza, and this is the section in which the two recensions part. Verses 1 to 31 are common ground; the verse 31 page sets out exactly where the line falls and how the numbering diverges after it.

Verses 38 to 46 then name one danger to a stanza: the elephant, the lion, the forest fire, the snake, battle over two verses, the sea, disease and chains. Verse 47 gathers all eight into a single compound and verse 48 closes the hymn with its author’s name. This is the stretch to which the modern manuals attach their most specific worldly promises, including release from prison, cure of cancer and relief from the planets. Each of those pages reports the claim, names the source making it, and declines to endorse it; where a claim could lead someone to substitute recitation for medical or legal help, the page says so plainly.

The hymn is complete

With verse 48 the series has covered the whole of the Bhaktamar Stotra. The recension mapping established across these pages, stated once in full:

• Verses 1 to 31 are word for word identical in both recensions and carry the same numbers.
• Verses 32, 33, 34 and 35 in the Digambara 48-verse numbering are carried only by the Digambara recension. They describe the divine drum, the flower shower, the halo and the divine speech, the last four of the eight pratiharyas. Shvetambara editions that print them at all print them in an appendix, and in the Shvetambara text verse 31 is followed directly by the stanza numbered 36 here.
• From verse 36 to verse 48 the two recensions carry the same stanzas with a fixed offset of four: Digambara 36 is Shvetambara 32, Digambara 48 is Shvetambara 44. Nothing in this stretch is missing from either side.
• Both recensions end on the same stanza, the one numbered 48 here, in which the poet’s name appears.

The mapping follows Jainpedia and the English Wikipedia article, which place the four disputed stanzas at 32 to 35 of the 48-verse numbering. We were not able to consult an online Shvetambara edition printing its own 44-verse numbers, so the correspondence above is derived from the position of those four stanzas rather than read off a Shvetambara text; if that is ever contradicted by a printed Shvetambara edition, these pages will be corrected. We do not adjudicate between the recensions. Neither is a corruption of the other.

For the life of the Tirthankara the hymn addresses, see Rishabhanatha (Adinatha): The First Tirthankara.

How the text on these pages is established

Every verse is collated across four published editions before it is written up: jinvani.in, vidyasagar.net, jain24.com and DigJainWiki. These differ in orthography and each carries its own typographic slips; where they disagree we take the reading that most editions support and that scans correctly in Vasantatilaka, and we record the decision at the foot of the page. Genuine textual variants, as opposed to typesetting errors, are discussed in the body of the article, not buried.