Astakam

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The term "Astakam" is derived from the Sanskrit word 'Astak', meaning "Eight". The form of the composition is that of 'Astakam' i.e. eight stanzas make the piece. The stazas are a rhyming quartet with four lines, i.e. end lines rhyme as a-a-a-a. Thus, in an Astakam generally thity-two lines are maintained. All these stanzas abide a strict rhyme scheme. The proper rhyme scheme for an Astakam is: a-a-a-a/b-b-b-b….. (/ represents a new stanza). The rhyme designs are both ear-rhymes and eye-rhymes. Ear-rhyme where the end letters rhyme in sound and audibility, and eye-rhyme where the end letters appear similar. This rhyme sequence sets the usual structure of the astakam. Astaklam rhyme consists of identical ("hard-rhyme") or similar ("soft-rhyme") sounds placed at at predictable locations, normally the ends of lines for external rhyme or within lines for internal rhyme. Sanskrit language exhibits high richness in sustaining rhyming structures. Thus, Sanskrit astakams are capable of carrying limited set of rhymes all over a lengthy composition.

Several times in an astakam, the quatrains (sets of four lines) conclude abruptly or in other cases, with a couplet (a pair of lines). In the body quatrains the poet establishes a theme and then may resolve it in the final lines, called the couplet, or may leave them unsolved. Sometime the end couplet may contain self-identification of the poet. The structure is also bound by rules of meter for enhanced suitability for recital and classical singing.

However, there are several astakams that do not conform to the regular structure.

By the fifth century B.C., Astakam had come into existence as a literary piece of eight stanzas, each stanza containing four lines.

The conventions associated with the Astakam have evolved over its literary history of more than 2500 years. One of the most well-known and adored Astakam creator is the great Shri Adi Sankaracharya, who created an Astakam cycle witt a group of Astakams, arranged to address a particular deity, and designed to be read both as a collection of fully-realized individual poems and as a single poetic work comprising all the individual Astakams. The revered Adi Sankaracharya wrote more than hundred Astakams in "stuti" [dedication] to Lord Siva, Lord Jagannath, Goddess Laxmi etc.

Astakams were a very popular and generally accepted genre of devotional and general poetry during the golden period of Sanskrit literature, and also that of Vedic Indian Literature.