musings 108

In fact, many stotrams, that is, hymns or prayers in Sanskrit,just evolve with tradition.

Some stotrams are part of Puranas..

Even puranas got added up or interpolated with extra slokams locally over centuries..

In respect of celebrated Kavyams and other works in Sanskrit, the authorship is discovered and assigned after a lot of research.. and scholars do not agree even on that..

But the authorship of small stotrams just go by word of mouth traditions, which get distorted over time

People who wrote minor works like stotram often just assigned the authorship to some great personality just to have popularity for the work..

Poets working in the courts of Kings often just gave the authorship of their work to the king

So, at least in Sanskrit, and in the conditions in which the literature of that language evolved, it is better to enjoy the poetic and aesthetic beauty of a work .. and it is not going to make any difference just because the author is different..

And it is almost sure that Shankara who wrote the commentaries of the Prasthaanatrayam..Gita, Brahmasootram and Upanishads ( who is surely the Aadhi Shankara Bagavatpada) is not the same to whom many stotras are attributed.

In this matter, with due respects to the Matadhipathis and all, even though the pontiffs might say that everything is written by Shankara the Original one, the scholars would tend to differ for the marked difference in style and other aspect of the language..

After all the merit of sugar is to be judged by its sweetness,, and not on the basis of the jar or the bag in which it was kept..