AartiLyrics is a reference for the aartis, stotras, chalisas and daily shlokas that are sung in Hindu homes and temples. The aim is narrow and practical: to give you the correct words, in a script you can read, with an explanation of what you are actually saying.
What is on every page
Each entry follows the same structure, so once you have used one page you know where to look on all of them:
- The full text in Devanagari, set as verse so the line breaks match how it is sung rather than running together as a paragraph.
- An English transliteration for readers who speak the language but do not read the script, which is a very large number of people.
- The meaning, written out in plain Marathi or Hindi and again in English, rather than a word-for-word gloss that explains nothing.
- A short note on when and why the text is recited, an information table, and answers to the questions people actually ask about it.
How the texts are checked
This is the part that takes the time. Devotional lyrics circulate online in a bad state. Sites copy each other, and a typo introduced once gets reproduced on twenty pages until it looks like the correct reading. Several of the largest lyrics sites are simply scrapes of one another.
So nothing is published here on the strength of a single source. Every text is checked against at least two genuinely independent publishers, and independence is tested rather than assumed: if two sites reproduce the same missing space or the same misspelling, they are one source wearing two names, and they count once. Where publishers disagree, the reading is decided on evidence and the disagreement is noted on the page instead of being quietly smoothed over.
For the longer Sanskrit texts the comparison is done mechanically rather than by eye, and where the web is unreliable the reading is settled against scanned print editions. The Hanuman Chalisa here, for example, follows the Awadhi text that Gita Press actually prints, which differs in several places from the modernised Hindi that most websites carry.
Where texts are not published
Some well known aartis are missing from this site on purpose. A text is left out when it cannot be traced to two independent sources, or when it turns out to be a twentieth-century composition with a named author whose work may still be in copyright. It is better to have a gap than to publish something wrong or something that is not ours to publish.
Languages
Content is published in Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit. Marathi coverage is deliberate: the Maharashtrian aarti tradition, the sant aartis and the daily recitation shlokas are poorly served online compared with the Hindi material, and that is where a lot of the work here has gone.
Corrections
If you recite one of these texts and a line here does not match what you know, please write in. Tell us which page, which line, and if possible where your version comes from, whether that is a family tradition, a temple, or a printed book. Corrections of this kind are genuinely welcome and are how the collection improves. You can reach us through the contact page.