ଶ୍ରୀ କୃଷ୍ଣ ଅକ୍ଷରମାଲିକା ସ୍ତୋତ୍ରମ୍

Fifty verses by Ganapati Pandita, and the whole design sits in the first syllable of each: they run through the alphabet in order, one letter to a verse, from a through to ksha. Every verse then closes on the same unvarying line — Krishna Janardana, Krishna Janardana, Krishna Janardana, Krishna Hare — so that a fixed refrain measures out a moving series. The undecaying Madhava, without end, beloved of the ocean's daughter; destroyer of demons, without beginning, giver of knowledge of the self; his lotus feet worshipped by Indra and the host of the gods. The hardest letters to begin on are the vocalic l pair, which scarcely any Sanskrit word takes, and the poet coins his way through them rather than skip them. Only the fifty-first verse steps outside the scheme, to sign the work and wish it victory upon the earth.