Terms of Use

What this site is

Stotrams is a free reading library of Sanskrit devotional literature. Using it means you're content with what's on this page. If you aren't, the remedy is simply not to use it — there's no account to close.

Reciting, printing and sharing

Read these texts, recite them, print them, put them on a lectern, send them to your family, use them in a class or a satsang. That's what they're here for and none of it needs our permission. The Sanskrit itself is in the public domain and no one, including us, has any business claiming it.

Reusing our work

A layer of work sits on top of the source texts: the English meanings, the word-by-word notes, the descriptions, the categorisation, and the way the library is arranged. That layer took a long time and is ours, along with the site's design, name and artwork.

If you'd like to reuse it — in a book, an app, a video, another site — write to us. We generally say yes, we ask for a credit and a link, and we'll usually be pleased you asked. What we do object to is our translations turning up elsewhere with no attribution, presented as someone else's reading of the verse.

Copying the library wholesale

Automated bulk downloading of the site, or reproducing the collection as a whole, isn't on. Not because the texts are precious property, but because a scraped copy goes stale the moment we correct something — and a reader who finds our mistake living on somewhere we can't reach is worse off than if they'd never found it. If you have a use that genuinely needs bulk access, ask; there's usually a better way to do it and we'd rather help than find out afterwards.

Corrections and contributions you send us

If you send a correction, a translation, a note or a recording, you're giving us permission to publish it here and to keep publishing it, including after editing. You keep whatever rights you had in it; you're not signing them away, and you're free to use your own work elsewhere.

Please only send us things you're entitled to send. A translation copied out of a copyrighted edition puts us both in an awkward position, and we'd have to take it down. And if you'd like to be credited a particular way, or not credited at all, say so — we'll follow that.

Accuracy, and the limits of it

We work hard at getting these texts right and we do not claim to have succeeded everywhere. Sanskrit is exacting, translation is interpretive, and this library is added to continuously. Nothing here is offered with a guarantee of correctness, and for serious study or sustained practice you should cross-check against a printed edition or a teacher you trust. The disclaimer covers this properly.

Categories such as “health” or “prosperity” describe what tradition says about a text. They are not medical, financial or professional advice, and reciting something is not a substitute for a doctor.

Availability

This is run by a small group around other work. Pages get rewritten, addresses occasionally change, texts get corrected, and the site will sometimes be down. We don't promise it will always be reachable, and we'd suggest keeping your own copy of anything you rely on daily.

Behaving reasonably

Don't attack the site, don't try to break it for other people, and don't use it for anything unlawful. This is the shortest section here because it has never needed to be longer.

Links to other places

Where we link out — to a source repository, or somewhere a text can be checked — we don't control what's on the other end and can't vouch for it beyond the reason we linked to it.

Changes

These terms will change as the site does. The review date at the top moves when they do, and continuing to use the site after that means you're content with the revised version.

Getting in touch

Permissions, questions, or anything on this page that seems unreasonable:[email protected], or via thecontact form.