Bhaktamara Stotra

Long ago — more than a thousand years ago, in the city of Ujjayini in central India — there lived a Jain Acharya named Manatunga.

An Acharya is a senior monk — someone who has spent a lifetime in study and meditation, and who guides others on the path. Acharya Manatunga had given up everything: his family, his possessions, even his clothes. He owned nothing. He held nothing back.

What he did have was deep bhakti — devotion — for Bhagavan Adinath, the very first Tirthankara of our time. To him, the example of Adinath was the only thing worth holding onto in life.

Tradition tells us that there was a powerful king in Ujjayini — often remembered as King Bhoja. His court was filled with famous poets: Mayura, who praised the sun-god Surya; Bana, who praised the goddess Chandi. Both had composed beautiful hymns and were said to have shown miraculous powers through their devotion.

The king had heard of Acharya Manatunga, the Jain monk who lived without anything, who praised the Jina above all else. The king wanted to know: was Manatunga's devotion as powerful as the others?

“Show me,” the king said. “Show me the power of your Jain teachings. Show me what your Adinath can do.”

To make the test impossible, the king ordered Acharya Manatunga to be bound — not in one chain, not in ten, but in forty-eight iron chains. He was locked in a room behind forty-eight locked doors.

“If your devotion is real,” the king said, “let your Jina free you now.”

But Acharya Manatunga was not afraid. Sitting in chains, in the dark, he closed his eyes and began to compose verses praising Bhagavan Adinath.

The first verse was this:

“I bow to the feet of the first Jina — feet whose radiance lights up even the jewels in the crowns of bowing celestials, feet that dispel the darkness of sin...”

As Acharya Manatunga finished the verse — one chain broke.

He kept going. Verse two. Another chain broke. Verse three. Another. The verses came one after another, each one a praise of the Jina's qualities — his calmness, his wisdom, his light, his compassion. With each verse, one more chain fell away. With each verse, one more door unlocked.

At the forty-eighth verse, the last chain fell. The last door swung open. Acharya Manatunga stood up, walked out of the prison — without weapons, without anger, without even a single possession.

Just words. Just a stotra.

The king watched, stunned. He understood something he had not understood before: true power is not in miracles. True power is bhakti — devotion that is pure, focused, unshakeable. Devotion that does not depend on chains being broken or doors being opened. Devotion that simply is.

The stotra Acharya Manatunga composed in that prison cell is the same Bhaktamara Stotra we read today — all forty-eight verses of it. Across the Digambara tradition, it is recited daily in temples, in homes, by elders, and by children just learning their first prayers.

Every time we read it, we are doing what Acharya Manatunga did. We are turning toward the Jina's example. We are turning away from fear. And we are turning into bhakti — that pure, quiet devotion that is stronger than any chain.