Sahasranāmas

A sahasranāma ("thousand names") is a distinct genre of stotra listing exactly, or approximately, one thousand names or epithets of a deity, each name compressing an attribute, myth, or theological claim into a single word or short phrase. These are among the longest and most structurally distinctive devotional texts in the tradition — too extensive to treat as a single mantra card, so each gets its own dedicated page.

Canonical Definition

A sahasranāma is a hymn enumerating roughly one thousand names of a single deity in sequence, typically in the anuṣṭubh meter, often accompanied by a phala-śruti (statement of the benefits of recitation) and, in nearly every major case, an extensive scholarly commentary tradition explaining each name's meaning. The two most widely recited sahasranāmas are the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma (from the Mahābhārata) and the Lalitā Sahasranāma (from the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa), covered individually below.

Etymology: sahasra — "thousand" + nāma — "name."

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More sahasranāmas coming soon

The Śiva Sahasranāma and Durgā Sahasranāma are planned for future addition to this sub-genre.