śrī śiva pañcākṣaranakṣatramālā stotram

A garland of constellations on the five-syllabled mantra — twenty-seven verses for the twenty-seven stars, given by their colophon to Shankaracharya, and every quarter-line without exception ends on namah shivaya, so the mantra is said a hundred and eight times in the course of the hymn. That is the design: the reciter is doing japa while appearing to read a poem. The first verse pairs each repetition with an epithet — to the glorious self, to the one sea of qualities; to him whose least radiance has shaken off the sun; to him at whose name the bowing world's darkness is left behind. The second turns to an episode, the brahman boy who feared death and was protected, and to the trident that split the head of insolent Daksha.