A Treasury of Sanskrit Poetry: In English Translation

This is a comprehensive anthology of Sanskrit poetry in the best English translations available. The first ever of its kind, it brings together excerpts from a full range of original works, translated by over forty distinguished writers including poets and scholars, savants and seers, and two winners of the Nobel Prize for literature. Sanskrit, with an unbroken literary tradition of at least three thousand years, is a major component of India’s cultural heritage. In present popular perception it is mostly known as the language of religion and philosophy. Here this perspective is broadened with a rich sampling from the treasure trove of Sanskrit verse, access to which has so far remained restricted for the general reader. Drawing from sacred as well as classic and folk literature, this collection features a wide variety of poetry in translation. It includes nature hymns and mystic utterances; epic narratives and love lyrics; songs and reflections on the human condition; verses devotional and philosophic, heroic and tragic, erotic and satiric; courtly epigrams and inscriptions, and simple poems from the countryside. English translations from Sanskrit have a history of over two centuries. The finest of these renderings have been compiled in this volume by a well-known Sanskritist to present the ancient language’s poetic splendour, not through learned discourse, but by letting the poetry speak for itself.