ଅପାମାର୍ଜନ ସ୍ତୋତ୍ରମ୍

A long healing hymn from the Vishnudharmottara Purana, set as a dialogue between Dalbhya and the sage Pulastya. Dalbhya opens with the question the whole text answers: all living beings are afflicted without cease — by poison and disease, by the blows of hostile planets, by rites worked against them and by dreadful contagions — and by what act, he asks, does a person come to be free of them. Pulastya's answer is this stotra, called apamarjana because it wipes clean. Across a hundred and eighty-four verses it invokes Vishnu against affliction of every kind, and is recited for recovery from illness and for relief from planetary and inflicted harm.