Kramastotra — Abhinavagupta
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- Catalogue identifier
- klm000040
- Alternate titles and import identifiers
- KLM000040; Hymn to the Krama
- Author or attribution
- Abhinavagupta (named in the closing verse and colophon)
- Record type
- Scripture
- Language
- Sanskrit
- Date / edition
- 2020-07-31 (current digital version); 1998-07 (legacy encoding)
- Source / repository
- Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages (GRETIL), SUB Göttingen
- Access
- Open access
- Subjects
- KLM Research Sources — Batch 10; Ancient Scriptures and Primary Texts; Hymns, Prayers, and Devotional Poetry; Tantras and Esoteric Literature
Description and curator notes
Abhinavagupta’s compact hymn turns praise into an inquiry into consciousness and its powers. It first considers the relation between the worshipper, the act of praise, and Śiva, then follows the divine energies through manifestation, maintenance, withdrawal, and the ending of differentiation. Its middle and concluding movement treats the goddess powers of the Krama, including the red goddess, the power of dissolution, the destruction of death, and Mahākālī as the ending of time. The final verses unite these powers in Manthāna and ask that divine favour benefit everyone. It offers a Kālī-related primary source from Kashmir whose philosophical setting differs from Bengali devotional poetry and protective hymns. This record concerns Abhinavagupta’s own complete hymn, not Eraka’s similarly titled work or Abhinavagupta’s lost commentary on it. The Sanskrit e-text has a completion colophon but no English translation.
Research source KLM000040, Batch 10 export dated 5 November 2026.
The access, completeness, rights and reading assessments below come from the curator export, not a new independent verification by this library.
Kramastotra — Abhinavagupta
English title: Hymn to the Krama
Author or attribution: Abhinavagupta (named in the closing verse and colophon)
Publication date: 2020-07-31 (current digital version); 1998-07 (legacy encoding)
Publisher or repository: Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages (GRETIL), SUB Göttingen
Edition details: Complete standalone hymn in an institutional e-text repository. The legacy header identifies Dott. Marino Faliero and July 1998; the current HTML was mass-converted from that text. Do not attribute a specific printed edition to GRETIL: its Source field is empty.
Language: Sanskrit
Type: Sanskrit primary theological hymn; institutional digital transcription
Subjects: Ancient Scriptures and Primary Texts; Hymns, Prayers, and Devotional Poetry; Tantras and Esoteric Literature
Abhinavagupta’s compact hymn turns praise into an inquiry into consciousness and its powers. It first considers the relation between the worshipper, the act of praise, and Śiva, then follows the divine energies through manifestation, maintenance, withdrawal, and the ending of differentiation. Its middle and concluding movement treats the goddess powers of the Krama, including the red goddess, the power of dissolution, the destruction of death, and Mahākālī as the ending of time. The final verses unite these powers in Manthāna and ask that divine favour benefit everyone. It offers a Kālī-related primary source from Kashmir whose philosophical setting differs from Bengali devotional poetry and protective hymns. This record concerns Abhinavagupta’s own complete hymn, not Eraka’s similarly titled work or Abhinavagupta’s lost commentary on it. The Sanskrit e-text has a completion colophon but no English translation.
Kali relevance: Sustained Krama goddess sequence in verses 15–27, culminating in explicit Mahākālī at verse 26. Wenta’s peer-reviewed article identifies the hymn’s worship of the twelve goddesses as rays of consciousness and discusses its final Kālī. Not admitted merely because it is Śaiva or Śākta.
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Source or repository record
Rights: GRETIL explicitly distributes this e-text under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Its rights statement also says it was provided in good faith and may be removed if rights are asserted. The alternate Sanskrit Documents edition is free to read for study but prohibits promotional/commercial reposting without permission. Link to editions; do not treat the alternate edition as sharing the GRETIL licence.
Evidence class: Institution-hosted Sanskrit transcription with named contributor, not a newly collated critical edition. Comparison with an independent volunteer transcription verifies the work identity, continuous verse sequence, and closing colophon, not every reading.
Reading limits: All 30 verses were accessed and inspected across the full GRETIL HTML, including initial invocations, central goddess sequence, final Mahākālī passage, date verse, and colophon. No manuscript or print-witness collation. Not an English translation.
Composition date: Late tenth / early eleventh-century author; closing verse gives year 66 and a lunar date, but conversion to a Gregorian date was not independently established here.
Witness date: GRETIL legacy encoding July 1998; current TEI-derived HTML version 31 July 2020. Underlying print edition not identified in the GRETIL header.
Access verification: Full hymn freely readable in HTML without account, payment or borrowing. GRETIL displays verses 1–29, the final author/date verse, and a completion colophon; alternate transcription numbers the final verse 30.
Source and repository links:
https://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/transformations/html/sa_abhinavagupta-kramastotra.htm
Source access
Rights and reading conditions
GRETIL explicitly distributes this e-text under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. Its rights statement also says it was provided in good faith and may be removed if rights are asserted. The alternate Sanskrit Documents edition is free to read for study but prohibits promotional/commercial reposting without permission. Link to editions; do not treat the alternate edition as sharing the GRETIL licence.
Citation
Abhinavagupta (named in the closing verse and colophon). Kramastotra — Abhinavagupta. Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages (GRETIL), SUB Göttingen. 2020-07-31 (current digital version); 1998-07 (legacy encoding). Complete standalone hymn in an institutional e-text repository. The legacy header identifies Dott. Marino Faliero and July 1998; the current HTML was mass-converted from that text. Do not attribute a specific printed edition to GRETIL: its Source field is empty.
This page supplies catalogue metadata and links. It does not reproduce the underlying source text. Historical, religious, healing and interpretive claims belong to the cited sources, not to an independent verification by this catalogue.