Sriramacaritabdhiratna of Nityananda Shastri

Composed by one of the foremost Sanskrit poets and scholars of the earlier part of the 20 Cen. Pandit Nityananda Shastri, the Mahakavya delineates the life story of Lord Rama which he conceives as the ocean, the Udadhi, in fourteen cantos, the figure corresponding to the number of the jewels, the ratnas come out of it when churned. The figure also is reminiscent of the number of years of exile of the Lord. The Mahakavya is composed in the age-old Citrakavya style which had long become extinct requiring as it does high proficiency in grammar, vocabulary and syntax. Pandit Nityanand Shastri possessed all these in abundance. Coupled with these was his extra-ordinary mastery over prosody and rhetorics as exemplified by the use by him of rare metres and figures of speech. The Mahakavya with its varied descriptions of natural phenomena and human emotions and the use only of certain letters or the avoidance of them going with certain situations shows his rare command over expression which also is noticeable in designing his composition in such a way that each initial letter of the stanzas leads to the appearance of the first canto of the Valmiki Ramayana which gives a summary of the Rama story. For the proper appreciation of readers this work is presented herewith in English version by one of the leading lights in Sanskrit of the present times