Overview

King Harsha, who reigned over the kingdom of Kanauj from 606 to 647 CE, composed two Sanskrit plays about the mythical figures of King Udayana, his queen, Vásava·datta, and two of his co-wives. The plays abound in mistaken identities, both political and erotic. The characters masquerade as one another and, occasionally, as themselves, and each play refers simultaneously to itself and to the other. Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

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9780814719961

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Reviews

No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience. -The Times Higher Education Supplement The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot... Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes. --New Criterion Published in the geek-chic format. -BookForum Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs. -Tricycle Now an ambitious new publishing project, the Clay Sanskrit Library brings together leading Sanskrit translators and scholars of Indology from around the world to celebrate in translating the beauty and range of classical Sanskrit literature... Published as smart green hardbacks that are small enough to fit into a jeans pocket, the volumes are meant to satisfy both the scholar and the lay reader. Each volume has a transliteration of the original Sanskrit text on the left-hand page and an English translation on the right, as also a helpful introduction and notes. Alongside definitive translations of the great Indian epics-30 or so volumes will be devoted to the Maha*bharat itself - Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartri*hari, the pungent satire of Jayanta Bhatta and the roving narratives of Dandin, among others. All these writers belong properly not just to Indian literature, but to world literature. -LiveMint The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance. -Willis G. Regier,The Chronicle Review

The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance. -Willis G. Regier,The Chronicle Review The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot... Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes. --New Criterion Published in the geek-chic format. -BookForum Now an ambitious new publishing project, the Clay Sanskrit Library brings together leading Sanskrit translators and scholars of Indology from around the world to celebrate in translating the beauty and range of classical Sanskrit literature... Published as smart green hardbacks that are small enough to fit into a jeans pocket, the volumes are meant to satisfy both the scholar and the lay reader. Each volume has a transliteration of the original Sanskrit text on the left-hand page and an English translation on the right, as also a helpful introduction and notes. Alongside definitive translations of the great Indian epics-30 or so volumes will be devoted to the Maha*bharat itself - Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartri*hari, the pungent satire of Jayanta Bhatta and the roving narratives of Dandin, among others. All these writers belong properly not just to Indian literature, but to world literature. -LiveMint Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs. -Tricycle No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience. -The Times Higher Education Supplement

The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance. - Willis G. Regier, The Chronicle ReviewNo effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience. - The Times Higher Education Supplement

Author Information

Wendy Doniger is Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. She has also translated The Kama·sutra (with Sudhir Kakar), The Rig Veda: An Anthology, Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook and The Laws of Manu (with Brian K. Smith), and is the author of nine more books about Indian culture.

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