saṅkaṭanāmāṣṭakam

Eight names of Sankata from the Padma Purana, framed as a conversation in which Narada tells the sage Jaigishavya that he has heard many holy accounts by his grace and asks now for this one. Sankata is affliction itself made a goddess, and the eight names are what is recited against it. A meditation on the Goddess follows the names, and then the fruits. The last of them is the one such texts reserve for their strongest claim: the hymn is famed in the three worlds as the destroyer of calamity, is to be kept carefully secret, and causes a woman long barren to bear a child.