A History of Sanskrit Literature c16.s2.1

c16.s2.1

The production of hymns of praise to the gods naturally did not cease with the Vedic poets, though the gradual change of religion evoked an alteration in the gods who received adoration; beside old gods such as Çiva, Viṣṇu, and Sūrya, whose worship was perhaps from time to time strengthened by the influx of sun-worshippers from Iran, especially after the Mahomedan conquest of Persia, there appear newer figures in the pantheon such as Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, and Durgā, who in fact is often a local deity covered by the decent robe of Çiva’s dread spouse. The epic shows the existence of such hymns, the Purāṇas and Tantras afford many specimens of them, while collections of a hundred or a thousand names of a god or goddess became numerous. But naturally the higher poetry invaded this field also, and the fact that philosophers were not unwilling to take part in the composition of Stotras, songs of praise, to the gods whose reality they recognized as emphatically for empirical purposes as they denied it transcendentally, lent dignity to the art. The number of Stotras preserved is vast, but many are of no poetic worth, many of very late date, and a still larger number cannot be assigned to any definite period in the absence of external evidence, and the rarity of finding any individual note in their rather stereotyped form and style.