The Epic Beautiful: An English Verse Rendering of the Sundara Kanda of the Ramayana of Valmiki

The Sundara Kanda – the bija-kanda or seed-book of the Ramayana of Valmiki – stands by itself as a rounded epic in its own compelling right. Instinct with diverse ‘beauties’ (like sabdasaundarya and Kavya-saundarya) and all the nine ‘Rasas’, the work may be viewed as a marvel of a finished epic with an admirable ordering of parts fusing into an effulgent unity, verily a moving relation of events of abiding racial and human interest. In ‘The Epic Beautiful,’ Prof. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar has rendered the complete Sundara Kanda into 2823 unrhymed quatrains divided into 7 Books and 68 Cantos. He has likewise given in verse, as ‘Prologue’, the traditional account of the genesis of the epic (from the Bala Kanda); and, as ‘Epilogue’, verse renderings of Aditya Hridayam and ‘The Coronation of Rama and Sita’ (both from the Yuddha Kanda). These are by tradition meaningful and auspicious ancillaries to the Sundara Kanda. Professor Iyengar has also contributed a long and scholarly Introduction on the Epic tradition in India, the universality of the appeal of the Ramayana, the centrality and beauty of the ‘Sundara Kanda’, the fascination it exercises on men, women and children, and on the problem of translating the Ramayana from the original Sanskrit into English. Professor Iyengar’s ‘Notes and Comments’, again, are a help towards the understanding and appreciation of the ‘Sundara Kanda’ or ‘The Epic Beautiful’.