NYU Press

The Ramáyana epic centers around Rama, the crown prince of the city of Ayódhya, providing a profound meditation on the paradox of the hero as both human and divine. After rescuing a sage from persecution by demons. Rama attends a tournament in the neighboring city of Míthila where he wins the prize and the hand of Sita, the princess of Míthila. But a court intrigue involving one of the king’s junior wives and a maidservant forces Rama into a fourteen-year banishment to the jungle with his wife, Sita, and his loyal brother Lákshmana. When Sita is abducted by the demon king Rávana, Rama goes to the monkey capital of Kishkíndha to seek help in finding her. It is there that he meets Hánuman, the greatest of the monkey heroes. In exchange for the assistance of the monkey troops in discovering where Sita is held captive, Rama has to help Sugríva win the monkey throne over his brother, Valin. In the final book of the set, Hánuman leaps across the ocean to the island citadel of Lanka, where he scours the city for the abducted Princess Sita. But when Hánuman reveals himself to the princess and offers to carry her back to Rama, she nevertheless insists that Rama must come himself to avenge the abduction.
Included in this set:
Ramáyana Book I: Boyhood
By Valmíki. Translated by Robert Goldman.
424 pages / 978-0-8147-3163-5
Ramáyana Book II: Ayódhya
By Valmíki. Translated by Sheldon I. Pollock.
652 pages / 978-0-8147-6716-0
Ramáyana Book III: The Forest
By Valmíki. Translated by Sheldon I. Pollock.
436 pages / 978-0-8147-6722-1
Ramáyana Book IV: Kishkíndha
By Valmíki. Translated by Rosalind Lefeber.
415 pages / 978-0-8147-5207-4
Ramáyana Book V: Súndara
By Valmíki. Translated by Robert Goldman and Sally Sutherland Goldman.
538 pages / 978-0-8147-3178-9

The Rise of Wisdom Moon was composed during the mid-eleventh century by Krishna mishra, an otherwise unknown poet in the service of the Chandella dynasty, whose cultural and religious capital was Khajuraho. The early popularity of Krishna mishra’s work led to its frequent translation into the vernaculars of both North and South India, and even Persian as well. Famed as providing the enduring model of the allegorical play for all subsequent Sanskrit literature, The Rise of Wisdom Moon offers a satirical account of the conquest of the holy city of Benares by Nescience, of the war of liberation waged by the forces of Intuition, and of the freedom of the Inner Man that then follows the rise of Wisdom. But at the outset, when Nescience still has the upper hand, with minions like Lord Lust, such developments seem unlikely.

This set of plays provides an array of Sanskrit drama and satire, with plots that vary from the “strikingly Shakespearian” (as H. H. Wilson described it ) “Little Clay Cart” to a dramatization of and amendment to the “Ramáyana” in “Rama’s Last Act.” In addition to its scope of genre, the set covers a large period of time (the “Three Satires” by Bhállata, Ksheméndra, and Nila·kan alone were written over a period of nearly a thousand years) and also includes several works traditionally given less modern attention, such as “Málavika and Agni·mitra” by Kali·dasa, in order to provide a multifaceted view of Sankskrit theater.
Included in this set:
“The Lady of the Jewel Necklace” & “The Lady who Shows her Love”
By Harsha. Translated by Wendy Doniger.
514 pages / 978-0-8147-1996-1
Little Clay Cart
By Shúdraka. Translated by Diwakar Acharya. Foreword by Partha Chatterjee.
640 pages / 978-0-8147-0729-6
Málavika and Agni·mitra
Kali·dasa. Translated by Dániel Balogh and Eszter Somogyi.
350 pages / 978-0-8147-8702-1
Rákshasa’s Ring
By Vishákha·datta. Translated by Michael Coulson
385 pages / 978-0-8147-1661-8
Rama Beyond Price
By Murári. Edited and translated by Judit Törzsök.
638 pages / 978-0-8147-8295-8
Rama’s Last Act
By Bhava·bhuti. Translated by Sheldon Pollock. Fore­word by Girish Karnad.
458 pages / 978-0-8147-6733-7
The Recognition of Shakúntala (Kashmir Recension)
By Kali·dasa. Edited and translated by Somadeva Vasudeva.
419 pages / 978-0-8147-8815-8
Three Satires
By Bhállata, Ksheméndra, and Nila·kantha. Edited and translated by Somadeva Vasudeva.
403 pages / 978-0-8147-8814-1

The Buddhist monk Ashva·ghosha composed Life of the Buddha in the first or second century CE probably in Ayódhya. This is the earliest surviving text of the Sanskrit literary genre called kavya and probably provided models for Kali·dasa's more famous works. The most poignant scenes on the path to his Awakening are when the young prince Siddhártha, the future Buddha, is confronted by the reality of sickness, old age, and death, while seduced by the charms of the women employed to keep him at home. A poet of the highest order, Ashva·ghosha's aim is not entertainment but instruction, presenting the Buddha's teaching as the culmination of the Brahmanical tradition. His wonderful descriptions of the bodies of courtesans are ultimately meant to show the transience of beauty.
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

Each of the ten princes has several adventures on his quest to be reunited with the crown-prince. Variegated violence and sorcery figure in their exploits, but love affairs are even more prominent. Commentators have lambasted Dandin's heroes for their antiheroic, apparently random, escapades, while in fact the architecture of his plot reveals an elegant, instructive construction.
What Ten Young Men Did is a coming-of-age novel from the seventh century CE. In combat and in the bedroom, ten individuals juggle virtue and vice on their heroic progress from adolescence to maturity. Dandin’s work is autobiographical in two senses: each of the young men narrates their personal experiences, while the author could not have written with such confident realism had he not had many of the same picaresque adventures in his native South India and beyond.
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

This court epic describes events leading up to the birth of Kumára, the war god who will defeat the demon Táraka. The gods try to use Kama, the Indian Cupid, to make the ascetic god Shiva fall in love with the daughter of the Himalaya mountain. Kama fails, and is burnt to ashes by the angry Shiva. Then Parvati, the daughter of the mountain, herself turns to asceticism to win the husband she longs for. She is successful, and the climax of the poem is the marriage and lovemaking of Shiva and Parvati, parents of the universe.
The greatest long poem in classical Sanskrit, by the greatest poet of the language, Kali·dasa's The Birth of Kumára is not exactly a love story but a paradigm of inevitable union between male and female, played out on the immense scale of supreme divinity. In this court-epic, the events are described leading up to but not including the birth of Kumára, the war god destined to defeat the demon Táraka.
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

"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
"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·bhárat itself — Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartri·hari, the pungent satire of Jayánta 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 Clay Sanskrit Library has recently set out to change the scene by making available well-translated dual-language (English and Sanskrit) editions of popular Sanskritic texts for the public.”
—Namarupa
The frame narrative in “The Ocean of the Rivers of Story” is so swamped in the flood of stories that it is not until volume two of the CSL edition, 3,000 verses into the text, that Nara·váhana·datta, the protagonist, is born. Shiva has foretold his birth and said that he is a partial incarnation of the god of love and will become the emperor of the sorcerers. From here on the main narrative and many of the tales pouring into it describe the exploits of sorcerers and lovers. This volume ends with the events preceding the birth of Mádana·máñchuka, Nara·váhana·datta’s first and greatest love.

Bhanu is probably the most famous Sanskrit poet that no one today has ever heard of. His “Bouquet of Rasa” and “River of Rasa,” both composed in the early sixteenth century, probably under the patronage of the Nizam of Ahmadnagar in western India, attracted the attention of the most celebrated commentators in early modern India. Some of the greatest painters of Mewar and Basohli vied to turn his subtle poems into pictures. And his verses were prized by poets everywhere: Abu al-Fazl, the preeminent scholar at Akbar’s court, translated them into Persian, and, Kshetráyya, the great Andhra poet of the next century, adapted them into Telugu. Many writers have described the types of heroines and heroes of Sanskrit literature (the subject of the “Bouquet of Rasa”) or explained the nature of aesthetic emotion (that of the “River of Rasa”), but none did so in verse of such exquisite and subtle artistry.

Vedanta Deshika (1268-1369) was perhaps the most outstanding Sanskrit author in the South Indian tradition focused on Vishnu and one of the most original poets in all of Sanskrit literature. Two of his best-known works appear here. "The Mission of the Goose," in the genre of messenger-poems modeled on Kali dasa’s famous "Cloud Messenger," has Rama send a goose with a message for Sita, flying to Lanka over graphically described Tamil temples. "Compassion" is a meditation about the compassionate aspect of Vishnu, particularly as embodied in the great temple of Tirupati. Appayya Dikshita (1520 -1592) and Nila kantha Dikshita (1580 1644) belong to one family as well as to the same religious world centered on Shiva. Appayya’s "Self-Surrender" to his deity is the most personal of the polymath’s works. In "Peace" his great-nephew Nila kantha, political high achiever as well as poet, reevaluates renunciation and transcendence in a skeptical, intimate, and deeply unsettling voice.

Epic: Maha·bhárata
The Maha·bhárata tells the tale of the epic battle between the Pándavas and the Káuravas for the thrown. It begins with the famous game of dice between the Pándavas and the Káuravas, which sets the scene for the war that will lie at the center of the Maha·bhárata epic. But even after the war is ostensibly over when the heroic but flawed king of the Káuravas is dishonor­ably defeated in battle by his arch enemy, the extended family is still wracked in conflict leaving survivors, victors and vanquished struggling to comprehend their loss. Perhaps the most enigmatic philosophical text from ancient India, the final book in the set, “The Book of Liberation” is presented as the teachings of Bhishma as he lies dying on the bat­tlefield in the aftermath of war.
Included in this set:
Maha·bhárata Book II: The Great Hall
Translated by Paul Wilmot.
588 pages / 978-0-8147-9406-7
Maha·bhárata Book III: The Forest
Volume 4
Translated by William Johnson.
374 pages / 978-0-8147-4278-5
Maha·bhárata Book IV: Viráta
Translated by Kathleen Garbutt.
516 pages / 978-0-8147-3183-3
Maha·bhárata Book V: Preparations for War
Volume 1
Translated by Kathleen Garbutt. Foreword by Gurcharan Das.
720 pages / 978-0-8147-3191-8
Maha·bhárata Book V: Preparations for War
Volume 2
Translated by Kathleen Garbutt.
760 pages / 978-0-8147-3202-1
Maha·bhárata Book VI: Bhishma
Translated by Alex Cherniak. Foreword by Ranajit Guha.
Volume 1 (Including the “Bhagavad Gita” in Context)
615 pages / 978-0-8147-1696-0
Maha·bhárata Book VI: Bhishma
Volume 2
Translated by Alex Cherniak.
550 pages / 978-0-8147-1705-9
Maha·bhárata Book VII: Drona
Volume 1
Translated by Vaughan Pilikian.
473 pages / 978-0-8147-6723-8
Maha·bhárata Book VII: Drona
Volume 2
Translated by Vaughan Pilikian.
470 pages / 978-0-8147-6776-4
Maha·bhárata Book VIII: Karna
Volume 1
Translated by Adam Bowles
604 pages / 978-0-8147-9981-9
Maha·bhárata Book VIII: Karna
Volume 2
Translated by Adam Bowles.
684 pages / 978-0-8147-9995-6
Maha·bhárata Book IX: Shalya
Volume 1
Translated by Justin Meiland.
371 pages / 978-0-8147-5706-2
Maha·bhárata Book IX: Shalya
Volume 2
Translated by Justin Meiland.
470 pages / 978-0-8147-5737-6
Maha·bhárata Books X & XI: “Dead of the Night” and “The Women”
Translated by Kate Crosby.
350 pages / 978-0-8147-1727-1
Maha·bhárata Book XII: Peace (Part 2: The Book of Liberation)
Volume 3
Translated by Alex Wynne.
540 pages / 978-0-8147-9453-1

When Go·várdhana composed his "Seven Hundred Elegant Verses" in Sanskrit in the twelfth century CE, the title suggested that this was a response to the 700 verses in the more demotic Prakrit language traditionally attributed to King Hala, composed almost a thousand years earlier. Both sets of poems were composed in the arya metre. Besides being the name of a metre, in Sanskrit arya means a noble or elegant lady, and Go·várdhana wished to reflect and appeal to a sophisticated culture. These poems each consist of a single stanza, almost as condensed and allusive as a Japanese haiku. They cover the gamut of human life and emotion, though the favorite topic is love in all its aspects.
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

No Sanskrit poet is more interesting, original, or greater than Bana. His prose poem Princess Kadámbari is his supreme achievement. His patron, King Harsha, ruled much of northern India from 606 to 647 CE from his capital at Kannauj. Princess Kadámbari, a work of fiction set in keenly observed royal courts, has everything. A love story doubled and redoubled in rebirth, the romance was so influential that its title became the word for a novel in some modern Indian languages. In free form verse, the experimental poem embodies enormous originality. Animals, flowers and mythology, as well as humans are presented in sympathetic detail. The complex coherent structure will culminate in a breathtaking conclusion. The two love affairs that dominate the poem have not yet begun in this first volume, where we hear of rituals to obtain a son, and the upbringing of a prince. Altogether the reader is given perhaps the fullest presentation of classical India available in a single work.

Sanskrit Messenger poems evoke the pain of separated sweethearts through the formula of an estranged lover pleading with a messenger to take a message to his or her beloved. The plea includes a lyrical description of the route the messenger will take and the message itself. The first was the Cloud Messenger, composed by Sanskrit’s finest poet, Kali·dasa, in the fifth century CE. This inspired the next, the Wind Messenger, composed in praise of King Lákshmana·sena of Gauda (Bengal) in the twelfth century by Dhoyi, one of his court poets. Numerous more followed, including the third in the CSL selection, the sixteenth-century Swan Messenger, composed in Bengal by Rupa Go·svamin, a devotee of Krishna.
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

The short lyric poem appears with great frequency in Sanskrit collections and displays a wide range of themes. Bhartri·hari is the most famous composer. Ámaru and Bílhana also offer excellent examples.
This anthology of the Love Lyrics of three Indian poets conjures up an atmosphere of love both sensual and social, ever in tension with love's rejection or repression. The flavor of all these poems- Ámaru’s seventh-century C.E. “Hundred Poems,” Bhartri·hari's anthology “Love, Politics, Disenchantment,” from the fourth century, and Bílhana's eleventh-century “Fifty Stanzas of a Thief”—is the universalized aesthetic experience of love.
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

In this second volume of the Garland of Past Lives, Aryashura applies his elegant literary skill toward composing fourteen further stories that depict the Buddha’s quest for enlightenment in his former lives. Here the perfection of forbearance becomes the dominant theme, as the future Buddha suffers mutilations from the wicked and sacrifices himself for those he seeks to save. Friendship, too, takes on central significance, with greed leading to treachery and enemies transformed into friends through the transformative effect of the future Buddha’s miraculous virtue. The setting for many such moral feats is the forest. Portrayed as home for the future Buddha in his lives as an animal or ascetic, the peaceful harmony of this idyllic realm is often violently interrupted by intrusions from human society. Only the future Buddha can resolve the ensuing conflict, influencing even kings, in the stories but also throughout Asian history, to express wonder and devotion at the startling demonstrations of virtue they encounter.

The Garland of Past Lives is a collection of thirty four stories depicting the miraculous deeds performed by the Buddha in his previous rebirths. Composed in the fourth century C.E. by the Buddhist monk Aryashura, the text’s accomplished artistry led Indian aesthetic theorists to praise its elegant mixture of verse and prose. The twenty stories in this first volume deal primarily with the virtues of giving and morality. Ascetics sacrifice their lives for hungry tigers, kings open their veins for demons to drink their blood, helmsmen steer their crew through perilous seas, and quail chicks quench forest fires by proclaiming words of truth. The experience is intended to arouse astonishment in the audience, inspiring devotion, through the future Buddha’s transcendence of conventional norms in his quest to acquire enlightenment and save the world from suffering. The importance of such stories of past lives in traditional Buddhist culture, throughout Asia and up to today, cannot be overestimated.

Adventure, conquest, romance, comedy, suspense, and tragedy are just a few of the themes woven together by the range of styles represented in this set of classical Sanskrit literature. The set brings together classics like the Aesop’s fables which originated in Vishnu·sharman’s “Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom” with the less traditional, such as the adventures of Dandin’s “What Ten Young Men Did,” written uncharacteristically in prose rather than verse.
Included in this set:
The Emperor of the Sorcerers
Volume 1
By Budha·svamin. Edited and translated by Sir James Mallinson.
452 pages / 978-0-8147-5701-7

The Emperor of the Sorcerers
Volume 2
By Budha·svamin. Edited and translated by Sir James Mallinson.
467 pages / 978-0-8147-5707-9
Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom
By Vishnu·sharman. Edited and translated by Patrick Olivelle.
562 pages / 978-0-8147-6208-0
“Friendly Advice” by Naráyana & “King Víkrama’s Adventures”
Translated by Judit Törzsök.
742 pages / 978-0-8147-8305-4
How Úrvashi Was Won
Kali·dasa. Translated by Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman.
300 pages / 978-0-8147-4111-5
The Ocean of the Rivers of Story
Volume 1
By Soma·deva. Translated by Sir James Mallinson.
556 pages / 978-0-8147-8816-5
The Ocean of the Rivers of Story
Volume 2
By Soma·deva. Translated by Sir James Mallinson.
580 pages / 978-0-8147-9558-3
The Quartet of Causeries
By Shúdraka, Shyamílaka, Vara·ruchi, and Íshvara·datta. Edited and translated by Csaba Dezsö and Somadeva Vasudeva.
450 pages / 978-0-8147-1978-7
What Ten Young Men Did
By Dandin. Translated by Isabelle Onians.
651 pages / 978-0-8147-6206-6

To the dry bones of grammar Bhatti gave juicy flesh in his poem, telling the greatest Indian story in elegant Sanskrit. Composed in the fourth century CE, in South India, ”Bhatti’s Poem: The Death of Rávana” is both a poetic retelling of Rama’s adventures, and a compendium of grammatical and rhetorical examples for students. Bhatti’s study aid to Pánini’s groundbreaking grammatical treatise, the “Eight Books,” gives examples disguised as the gripping, morally improving “Ramáyana” story. In Bhatti’s own words: “This composition is a lamp to those whose eyes have language as their goal.” Tradition has it that an elephant ambled between Bhatti and his pupils, interrupting their outdoors grammar class. By Hindu law this intrusion canceled class for a year. Lest time be lost, Bhatti composed his poem to teach grammar without textbooks. Ever since, “The Death of Rávana” has been one of the most popular poems in Sanskrit literature.

Nanda has it all: youth, money, good looks and a kittenish wife who fulfills his sexual and emotional needs. He also has the Buddha, a dispassionate man of immense insight and self-containment, for an older brother. When Nanda is made a reluctant recruit to the Buddha's order of monks, he is forced to confront his all-too-human enslavement to his erotic and romantic desires. Dating from the second century CE, Ashva·ghosha’s Handsome Nanda portrays its hero’s spiritual makeover with compassion, psychological profundity, and great poetic skill.
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

The Dark Age Ridiculed, by Níla·kantha, Beguiling Artistry, by Ksheméndra, The Hundred Allegories, by Bhállata
Written over a period of nearly a thousand years, these works show three very different approaches to satire. Níla·kantha gets straight to the point: swindlers prey on stupidity.
The artistry that beguiles Ksheméndra is as varied as human nature and just as fallible. We are off to a gentle start Sanctimonious—really no more than a warm-up among vices—but soon graduate to Greed and Lust. From there it's downhill all the way, as unfaithfulness leads on to fraud, and drunkenness to depravity; deception and quackery bring up the rear. What's this at the very end? Virtue? A late arrival, pale and unconvincing.
This volume presents three Indian satirists with three different strategies: in the ninth century C.E., Bhállata sought vengeance on his boorish new king by producing vicious sarcastic verse, “The Hundred Allegories;” in the eleventh century, Ksheméndra presents himself as a social reformer out to shame the complacent into compliance with Vedic morality; and in the seventeenth century little can redeem the fallen characters Níla·kantha portrays, so his duty is simply to warn about the corruption of every social type.
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

The Quartet of Causeries have been handed down as a collection of the most ancient monologue farces in classical Sanskrit. Though stylistically divergent, they share a common plot: the hero is an inept, bungling procurer, who mismanages his client's love-affairs to an unexpectedly successful completion. A wide spectrum of India's urban society is scandalized, from respected judges to clumsy poetasters, from hypocritical Buddhist monks to greedy madams, from spoiled scions of wealthy houses to criminal low-life.
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

Soma·deva composed his “Ocean of the Rivers of Story” in Kashmir in the eleventh century CE. It is a vast collection of tales based on “The Long Story,” a now lost (and perhaps legendary) repository of Indian fables, in which prince Nara·váhana·datta wins twenty-six wives and becomes the emperor of the sorcerers. There are tales within tales within tales. By turns funny, exciting, or didactic, they illustrate points within the narrative or are told simply to provide entertainment for the protagonists. Its twenty thousand plus verses are written in simple but elegant Sanskrit and it has long been used as an introductory text for students of the language.
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

Volume Two continues this fast-paced tale of mystery and sorcery up to canto 28. Nara·váhana·datta's epic quest to become the human emperor of the sorcerers leads him and his companions to win yet more wives. Unfortunately, the surviving manuscripts of the text break off while he is in pursuit of his sixth wife. The primary narrative is punctuated by diverting subplots.
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

The Epitome of Queen Lilávati tells the stories of the lives of a group of souls as they pass through a series of embodiments on their way to final liberation from the continual cycle of death and rebirth. Told as a means to promote the non-violent ethic of Jainism, it abounds in memorable incidents and characters, such as Dhana, the rich merchant who attempted to justify cheating in trade, Padmaratha, who while invisible attempted to seduce the ladies of the royal household, and Vasundhara, the bogus holy man who was caught in a compromising position with a female dog.
Written in 1297 CE by the Jain poet-monk Jina·ratna, The Epitome of Queen Lilávati is undeservedly almost unknown outside India. In the stories, embodied souls undergo all too human adventures in a succession of lives, as they advance to final release. The book abounds in memorable incidents and characters, related to Queen Lilávati and her husband, King Simha, by the teacher-monk Sámara·sena.
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

Budha·svamin tells the epic tale of the youthful exploits of prince Naravahanadatta. The reader is taken from royal palaces to flying sorcerers' mountain fastnesses via courtesans' bedrooms and merchant ships. A fast and witty narrative which provides a fascinating insight into ancient India.
Budha·svamin's The Emperor of the Sorcerers is a racy telling of the celebrated lost Indian narrative cycle The Long Story, framed by Nara·váhana·datta's magical adventures on his quest to become Emperor of the Sorcerers. It is indeed a great story, as its Sanskrit title declares. Epic in scope and scale, it has everything that a great story should: adventure, romance, suspense, intrigue, tragedy and comedy.
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

Religion
A diverse set, the religion set includes works from the biographical narratives of Buddha and stories of his past rebirths, to the lyrical account of love affair between gods, to a play that satirized religions to make a laughingstock of their followers and their tenets.
Included in this set:
The Epitome of Queen Lilávati
By Jina·ratna. Edited and translated by Richard Fynes.
Volume 1
543 pages / 978-0-8147-2741-6
The Epitome of Queen Lilávati
Volume 2
By Jina·ratna. Edited and translated by Richard Fynes.
650 pages / 978-0-8147-2742-3
Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives
Volume 1
By Arya·shura. Translated by Justin Meiland.
550 pages / 978-0-8147-9581-1
Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives
Volume 2
By Arya·shura. Translated by Justin Meiland.
543 pages / 978-0-8147-9583-5
Gita·govínda: Love Songs of Radha and Krishna
By Jaya·deva. Translated by Lee Siegel.
200 pages / 978-0-8147-4078-1
Handsome Nanda
By Ashva·ghosha. Translated by Linda Covill.
392 pages / 978-0-8147-1683-0
Heavenly Exploits: Buddhist Biographies from the Dívyavadána
Edited and translated by Joel Tatelman.
444 pages / 978-0-8147-8288-0
“How the Nagas Were Pleased” & “The Shattered Thighs”
By Harsha and Bhasa. Translated by Andrew Skilton.
350 pages / 978-0-8147-4066-8
Life of the Buddha
By Ashva·ghosha. Translated by Patrick Olivelle
561 pages / 978-0-8147-6216-5
Much Ado about Religion
By Bhatta Jayánta. Edited and translated by Csaba Dezsö.
320 pages / 978-0-8147-1979-4

Rama Beyond Price, a dramatized remake of the Ramáyana, is one of the most challenging pieces of Sanskrit poetry to read. Because of its elegant style, learned allusions, and often striking imagery, the poem has been a favorite among pundits. The well-known epic story of Rama’s exploits is presented as a series of political intrigues and battles, and contrasted with lyrical passages of various kinds: on love and war, pride and honor, gods and demons, rites and myths, regions and cities of ancient India. This is the first English translation of the only surviving work by Murári, a brahmin court poet, who lived some time between the eighth and tenth century CE, perhaps in Orissa or in neighboring South India.
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“Bhishma,” the sixth book of the eighteen-book epic The Maha•bhárata, narrates the first ten days of the great war between the Káuravas and the Pándavas. This first volume covers four days from the beginning of the great battle and includes the famous “Bhágavad•gita (“The Song of the Lord”), presented here within its original epic context. In this “bible” of Indian civilization the charioteer Krishna empowers his disciple Árjuna to resolve his personal dilemma: whether to follow his righteous duty as a warrior and slay his opponent relatives in the just battle, or to abstain from fighting and renounce the warrior code to which he is born.

The Book of Liberation is perhaps the most enigmatic philosophical text from ancient India. Presented as the teachings of Bhishma as he lies dying on the battlefield, after the epic war between the Pándavas and Káuravas, it was composed by unknown authors in the last centuries BCE, during the early period of world-renunciation, when peripatetic sages meditated under trees and practiced austerities in forest groves, and wandering sophists debated in the towns and cities. There has been no time like it before or since: such freedom of thought and expression is unparalleled in the history of the world. The freedom enjoyed by these ancient thinkers was not an end in itself. Above all this animated work is the record of philosophers seeking liberation (moksha) from a world they believed unsatisfactory. The speculation herein is but a means to an end, for its authors believed they could attain freedom from the world by knowing philosophical truths.

The “Little Clay Cart” is, for Sanskrit theatre, atypically romantic, funny, and thrilling. This most human of Sanskrit plays is Shakespearian in its skilful drawing of characters and in the plot’s direct clarity. One of the earliest Sanskrit dramas, “Little Clay Cart” was created in South India, perhaps in the seventh century CE. Set in the city of Ujjain, so secular and universal is the story that it can be situated in any society, and it has, including in Bollywood film and by the BBC. Charu•datta, a bankrupt married merchant, is extramaritally involved with a wealthy courtesan, Vasánta•sena. The king’s vile brother-in-law, unable to win Vasánta•sena’s love, strangles her, and accuses Charu•datta. The court decides the case hastily, condemning Charu•datta to death. Fortunately, our heroine rises from the dead to save her beloved, and all applaud their love. At this climax, the regime changes, and the rebel-turned-king makes Charu•datta lord of an adjacent city.

Jayadeva’s Gitagovínda is a lyrical account of the illicit springtime love affair of Krishna and Radha, a god and goddess manifesting on earth as a cowherd and milkmaid for the sake of relishing the sweet miseries and rapturous delights of erotic love. The narrative framing their bucolic songs was composed under royal patronage in northeastern India in the twelfth century. It was to be performed for connoisseurs of poetry and the erotic arts, for aesthetes and voluptuaries who, while sensually engaged, were at the same time devoted to Krishna as Lord of the Universe. The text at once celebrates the vicissitudes of carnal love and the transports of religious devotion, merging and reconciling those realms of emotion and experience. Erotic and religious sensibilities serve, and are served by, the pleasures of poetry. In the centuries following its composition, the courtly text became a vastly popular inspirational hymnal. Jayadeva's songs continue to be sung throughout India in fervent devotional adoration of Krishna.

The king despairs of his idle sons, so he hires a learned brahmin who promises to make their lessons in statecraft unmissable. The lessons are disguised as short stories, featuring mainly animal protagonists. Many of these narratives have traveled across the world, and are known in the West as Aesop’s fables.
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Two tragic plays that break the rules: both show the hero dying on stage, a scenario forbidden in Sanskrit dramaturgy. King Harsha's play, composed in the seventh century, re-examines the Buddhist tale of a magician prince who makes the ultimate sacrifice to save a hostage snake (naga). The Shattered Thighs, attributed to Bhasa, the illustrious predecessor to ancient Kali·dasa, transforms a crucial episode of the Maha·bhárata war. As he dies from a foul blow to the legs delivered in his duel with Bhima, Duryódhana's character is inverted, depicted as a noble and gracious exemplar amidst the wreckage of the fearsome battle scene.

“Rama’s Last Act” by Bhava·bhuti is counted among the greatest Sanskrit dramas. The work at once dramatizes the “Ramáyana”—it is one of the earliest theatrical adaptations of Valmíki’s epic masterpiece—and revises its most intractable episode, the hero’s rejection of his beloved wife. Human agency in the face of destiny, the power of love, and the capacity of art to make sense of such mysteries are the themes explored in this singular literary achievement of the Indian stage.
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Naráyana’s best-seller gives its reader much more than “Friendly Advice.” In one handy collection—closely related to the world-famous Pañcatantra or Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom —numerous animal fables are interwoven with human stories, all designed to instruct wayward princes. Tales of canny procuresses compete with those of cunning crows and tigers. An intrusive ass is simply thrashed by his master, but the meddlesome monkey ends up with his testicles crushed. One prince manages to enjoy himself with a merchant’s wife with her husband’s consent, while another is kicked out of paradise by a painted image. This volume also contains the compact version of King Víkrama’s Adventures, thirty-two popular tales about a generous emperor, told by thirty-two statuettes adorning his lion-throne.
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This play was one of the first examples of Indian literature to be seen in Europe; it attracted considerable attention (among others, from Goethe), and indeed pained surprise that such a sophisticated art-form could have developed without the rest of the world noticing. A good deal of that surprise will be revived by the hitherto untranslated Kashmirian recension.
Kali·dasa's The Recognition of Shakúntala is a play that scarcely needs introduction. Among the first works of Sanskrit literature translated into European languages, its skilful plot of thwarted love and eventual redemption has long charmed audiences around the world. Shakúntala's story is a leitmotiv that recurs in many works of Indian literature and culminates in the master Kali·dasa's drama for the stage.
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The second volume of Jina·ratna's thirteenth-century The Epitome of Queen Lilávati completes his story. Embodied souls undergo all too human adventures in a succession of lives, as they advance to final release. The primary purpose of Jain narrative literature was to edify lay people through amusement; consequently the stories are racy, and in some cases the moralizing element is rather tenuous.
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Including poetry whose masterful artistry addresses themes such as love, Indian epic and religion with as much aesthetic appeal as thematic, the poetry included in this set contains the poetry of well-known poets such as Vedánta Déshika while giving a voice to the work of other important writers such as Bhanu·datta who have been given less modern attention.
Included in this set:
Bhatti’s Poem: The Death of Rávana
By Bhatti. Translated by Oliver Fallon.
550 pages / 978-0-8147-2778-2
The Birth of Kumára
By Kali·dasa. Translated by David Smith.
360 pages / 978-0-8147-4008-8
“Bouquet of Rasa” & “River of Rasa”
By Bhanu·datta. Translated by Sheldon I. Pollock.
475 pages / 978-0-8147-6755-9
Love Lyrics
By Ámaru and Bhartri·hari. Translated by Greg Bailey. By Bílhana. Edited and translated by Richard F. Gombrich.
327 pages / 978-0-8147-9938-3
Messenger Poems
By Kali·dasa, Dhoyi, and Rupa Go·svamin. Edited and translated by Sir James Mallinson.
293 pages / 978-0-8147-5714-7
Princess Kadámbari
Volume 1
By Bana. Translated by David Smith.
490 pages / 978-0-8147-4080-4
The Rise of Wisdom Moon
Krishna·mishra. Translated by Matthew Kapstein. With a foreword by J. N. Mohanty.
350 pages / 978-0-8147-4838-1
“Self-Surrender,” “Peace,” “Compassion,” and “The Mission of the Goose”: Poems and Prayers from South India
Appayya Díkshita, Nilakantha Díkshita, and Vedánta Déshika. Translated by Yigal Bronner and David Shulman. With a foreword by Gieve Patel.
316 pages / 978-0-8147-4110-8
Seven Hundred Elegant Verses
By Go·várdhana. Translated by Friedhelm Hardy.
360 pages / 978-0-8147-3687-6

Rama goes to the monkey capital of Kishkíndha to seek help in finding Sita, and meets Hánuman, the greatest of the monkey heroes. There are two claimants for the monkey throne, Valin and Sugríva; Rama helps Sugríva win the throne, and in return Sugríva promises to help in the search for Sita. The monkey hordes set out in every direction to scour the world, but without success until an old vulture tells them she is in Lanka. Hánuman promises to leap over the ocean to Lanka to pursue the search.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
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The aristocrat who wrote this vigorous political play eschewed sentimentality in favor of realistic characterization and forceful action. It is 316 BCE, one year after Chandra·gupta Maurya, aided by his subtle minister Chánakya, has seized the kingdom of Mágadha from the last king of the Nanda dynasty. Rákshasa, Nanda’s incorruptible minister, flees abroad and plots his vengeance, while Chánakya seeks to win him over to honor Chandra·gupta Maurya as his new king.
The aristocrat who wrote this vigorous political play eschewed sentimentality in favor of realistic characterization and forceful action. It is 316 BCE, one year after Chandra·gupta Maurya, aided by his subtle minister Chanákya, has seized the kingdom of Mágadha from the last king of the Nanda dynasty. Rákshasa, Nanda's incorruptible minister, flees abroad and plots his vengeance, while Chanákya seeks to win him over to honor Chandra·gupta Maurya as his new king.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
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This play satirizes various religions in Kashmir and their place in the politics of King Shankaravarman (883–902). The leading character is a young and dynamic orthodox graduate, whose career starts as a glorious campaign against the heretic Buddhists, Jains, and other antisocial sects. By the end of the play he realizes that the interests of the monarch do not encourage such inquisitional rigor.
Unique in Sanskrit literature, Jayánta Bhatta's play, Much Ado About Religion, is a curious mixture of fiction and history, of scathing satire and intriguing philosophical argumentation. The play satirizes various religions in Kashmir and their place in the politics of King Shánkara·varman (883-902 CE). The leading character, Sankárshana, is a young and dynamic orthodox graduate of Vedic studies, whose career starts as a glorious campaign against the heretic Buddhists, Jains and other antisocial sects.
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Its frivolous subject may have been the reason why Malavika and Agni mitra is sometimes considered to be the least significant of the three dramas of Kali dasa, the poet laureate of Indian antiquity who probably lived in the fifth century CE. Yet the play’s lively and playful plot more than makes up for its lack of deities, heroic prowess and pathos. The machinations of King Agni mitra’s jester to help him add a dancing girl to his harem in spite of the subtle intrigues of the two jealous queens carry the gallant hero through hope and despair to the happy ending.

In India's great epic Maha·bhárata, the eighth book, “Karna,”; recounts the events that occurred during the mighty hero Karna’s two days as general of the Káurava army. This second volume resumes on the war's seventeenth and penultimate day. This will be a momentous day for the Bhárata clans and especially for a number of their most distinguished heroes, with some of the epic’s most telegraphed events reaching their climax. Not only will the epic's most anticipated duel between its greatest champions Árjuna and Karna be played out to its cruel and tragic end, but one of the more gruesome episodes in the epic will also take place with Duhshásana meeting the fate that has long awaited him since his brazen mistreatment of Dráupadi in the assembly hall.
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The Pándavas believe they have completed the terms of their exile, though Duryódhana claims that they did not live unknown for the full thirteenth year, since Árjuna was recognized in the battle at the end of the preceding book, Viráta. While the Pándavas and Kurus make their preparations for war they organize a series of embassies to negotiate peace. This volume constantly highlights the inevitability of conflict and the futility of negotiation. Most characters are concerned that war between family cannot fail to be sinful. Contained herein is the “Sanat·sujatíya,” a philosophical passage to rival the “Bhagavad·gita.” Like the “Bhagavad·gita,” the “Sanat·sujatíya” tells that karma will not chain one in the cycle of rebirth, if one refrains from desire. Through understanding the truth of non-duality, that the world is mere illusion, one is subsumed into eternal existence with Brahman.
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This second half of Bhishma describes the events from the beginning of the fifth day till the end of the tenth of the great battle between the Káuravas and the Pándavas. Despite grandfather Bhishma’s appeal to conclude peace with the Pándavas, Duryódhana continues the bloody battle. The key strategist is general Bhishma, commander of the Káurava forces. Even though he is compelled to fight on the side of the Káuravas, Bhishma’s sympathies are with the Pándavas. After the ninth day of war, when Bhishma has wreaked havoc with their troops, the Pándavas realise that they will be unable to win as long as invincible Bhishma is alive. Bhishma willingly reveals to them how he can be destroyed. Strictly observing the warrior code, he will never fight with Shikhándin, because he was originally born a woman. Bhishma advises the Pándava brothers that Árjuna should strike him from behind Shikhándin’s back, and they follow the grandfather’s advice.

Nanda has it all: youth, money, good looks and a kittenish wife who fulfills his sexual and emotional needs. He also has the Buddha, a dispassionate man of immense insight and self-containment, for an older brother. When Nanda is made a reluctant recruit to the Buddha's order of monks, he is forced to confront his all-too-human enslavement to his erotic and romantic desires. Dating from the second century CE, Ashva·ghosha’s Handsome Nanda portrays its hero’s spiritual makeover with compassion, psychological profundity, and great poetic skill.

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When Go·várdhana composed his "Seven Hundred Elegant Verses" in Sanskrit in the twelfth century CE, the title suggested that this was a response to the 700 verses in the more demotic Prakrit language traditionally attributed to King Hala, composed almost a thousand years earlier. Both sets of poems were composed in the arya metre. Besides being the name of a metre, in Sanskrit arya means a noble or elegant lady, and Go·várdhana wished to reflect and appeal to a sophisticated culture. These poems each consist of a single stanza, almost as condensed and allusive as a Japanese haiku. They cover the gamut of human life and emotion, though the favorite topic is love in all its aspects.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
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The aristocrat who wrote this vigorous political play eschewed sentimentality in favor of realistic characterization and forceful action. It is 316 BCE, one year after Chandra·gupta Maurya, aided by his subtle minister Chánakya, has seized the kingdom of Mágadha from the last king of the Nanda dynasty. Rákshasa, Nanda’s incorruptible minister, flees abroad and plots his vengeance, while Chánakya seeks to win him over to honor Chandra·gupta Maurya as his new king.
The aristocrat who wrote this vigorous political play eschewed sentimentality in favor of realistic characterization and forceful action. It is 316 BCE, one year after Chandra·gupta Maurya, aided by his subtle minister Chanákya, has seized the kingdom of Mágadha from the last king of the Nanda dynasty. Rákshasa, Nanda's incorruptible minister, flees abroad and plots his vengeance, while Chanákya seeks to win him over to honor Chandra·gupta Maurya as his new king.
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

This second half of Bhishma describes the events from the beginning of the fifth day till the end of the tenth of the great battle between the Káuravas and the Pándavas. Despite grandfather Bhishma’s appeal to conclude peace with the Pándavas, Duryódhana continues the bloody battle. The key strategist is general Bhishma, commander of the Káurava forces. Even though he is compelled to fight on the side of the Káuravas, Bhishma’s sympathies are with the Pándavas. After the ninth day of war, when Bhishma has wreaked havoc with their troops, the Pándavas realise that they will be unable to win as long as invincible Bhishma is alive. Bhishma willingly reveals to them how he can be destroyed. Strictly observing the warrior code, he will never fight with Shikhándin, because he was originally born a woman. Bhishma advises the Pándava brothers that Árjuna should strike him from behind Shikhándin’s back, and they follow the grandfather’s advice.

“Slender lady, I came out with you to gather fruit. I got a pain in my head and fell asleep in your lap. Then I saw a terrible darkness and a mighty person. If you know, then tell me - was it my dream? Or was what I saw real?”
So speaks Satyavat, newly rescued from the god of death by Savitri, his faithful wife, at the heart of one of the best loved stories in Indian literature. This, and other well known narratives, including a version of Rama's story, bring the Forest Book of the great Sanskrit epic, the Maha·bhárata, to its compelling conclusion. Woven into the main narrative of the Pandavas’ exile, these disparate episodes indicate the range and poetic power of the Maha·bhárata as a whole—a power that has the potential to speak to common human concerns across cultures and centuries.
“The Forest” is Book Three of the Maha·bhárata, “The Great Book of India.” This final quarter of the account of the Pándavas’ twelve-year exile in the forest contains four stirring stories that are among the best known in Indian literature. From a hero overcoming great odds, to a virtuous wife who rescues her family, and Indra tricking Karna, and Yudhi·shthira’s victory in the verbal contest with the tree spirit, these stories speak to common human concerns across cultures and centuries.
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In one of the most famous passages in Maha·bhárata, Dur·yódhana, the heroic but flawed king of the Káuravas, meets his end when he is dishonorably defeated in battle by his arch-enemy, Bhima. Framing a fascinating account of the sacred sites along the river Sarásvati, the duel poignantly portrays the downfall of a once great hero in the face of a new order governed by Krishna, in which the warrior code is brushed aside in order to ensure the predestined triumph of the Pándavas.
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The great war of the Maha bharata is over. Or is it? This is a single extended family wracked in conflict. Both sides succumbed to treachery. Ashva tthaman, the young leader of the three survivors on the losing side, is incensed at his father’s murder. He returns after dark to the now sleeping encampment. The sacrifice of the unsuspecting champions, the "Dead of Night," ensues. The five sons of Pandu have escaped. After a final confrontation, a missile crisis, Ashva tthaman concedes defeat but redirects his missile into the wombs of the victors’ women. They miscarry, and cannot hope for more children. Now the survivors, victors and vanquished, must struggle to comprehend their loss. "The Women" of both sides are confronted by their men’s mangled corpses in a masterpiece of horror and pathos. But their potent curses must be curbed to usher in a new era. Maha bharata Books Ten and Eleven give voice to the vanquished, to the psychology of loss and the conflicting desires for understanding and revenge.

The Book of Shalya recounts in gory detail the final destruction of the Káurava army and the defeat of its leader, Dur·yódhana. In this first volume heroic duels and martial speeches abound as Shalya, the king of the Madras, is made general of the Káurava army, only to be slaughtered in his turn.
The Book of Shalya recounts in gory detail the final destruction of the Káurava army and the defeat of its leader, Duryódhana. In this first volume heroic duels and martial speeches abound as Shalya, the king of the Madras, is made general of the Káurava army, only to be slaughtered in his turn.
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The Book of Liberation is perhaps the most enigmatic philosophical text from ancient India. Presented as the teachings of Bhishma as he lies dying on the battlefield, after the epic war between the Pándavas and Káuravas, it was composed by unknown authors in the last centuries BCE, during the early period of world-renunciation, when peripatetic sages meditated under trees and practiced austerities in forest groves, and wandering sophists debated in the towns and cities. There has been no time like it before or since: such freedom of thought and expression is unparalleled in the history of the world.

The freedom enjoyed by these ancient thinkers was not an end in itself. Above all this animated work is the record of philosophers seeking liberation (moksha) from a world they believed unsatisfactory. The speculation herein is but a means to an end, for its authors believed they could attain freedom from the world by knowing philosophical truths.

Volume Two of "Drona" begins in the aftermath of tragedy. As evening falls, Arjuna journeys wearily back to camp and is greeted by the ashen faces of his brothers. Before they speak, he guesses the worst. And the worst is right: his son Abhimanyu is dead. Arjuna is inconsolable. Insensible with rage, he vows to take revenge on the boy’s killers. He swears that if they are not dead before another day passes, he will set himself alight. The world seems to shudder at his words.

After Bhishma is cut down at the end of the previous book of the Maha·bhárata, the book which bears his name, Duryódhana selects Drona as leader of his forces. Drona accepts the honor with Bhishma's blessing, despite his ongoing personal conflicts as mentor to both the Pándava and Káurava heroes in their youth. The fighting rages on, with heavy losses on both sides. Furious and frustrated, Duryódhana accuses Drona of collaborating with the enemy, but he replies that as long as Árjuna is on the field, the Pándavas will remain invincible. When Árjuna is finally diverted from the main action of the battle, Yudhi·shthira entrusts Árjuna's son Abhimányu with the task of making a breach in the Káurava formation. Abhimányu rampages through Drona's army, but at last is cornered by several Káurava warriors and finally killed by Jayad·ratha.
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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.

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The Clay Sanskrit Library, co-published by NYU Press and the JJC Foundation, has been created to introduce classical Sanskrit literature to a wide international readership. This literature combines great beauty, enormous variety and more than three thousand years of continuous history and development.

The Library is now also available as a 56-volume complete set, as well as in six thematic mini-sets, grouped for readers interested in specific areas of the world of classical Sanskrit literature.

This selection of religious biographies from the early centuries C.E. offers a delightful introduction to a literary genre that has played an essential part in Buddhist self-understanding for over two thousand years.
The Heavenly Exploits are “Buddhist Biographies from the Dívyavadána.” The worldly face of religious literature, these lively morality tales have inspired audiences across Asia for more than two millennia. This volume contains four of the thirty-eight Buddhist biographical stories in the ”Dívyávadana,” or Heavenly Exploits. Where religion meets the world, these tales present something for everyone.
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The fifth and most popular book of the Ramáyana of Valmíki, Súndara recounts the adventures of the monkey hero Hánuman leaping across the ocean to the island citadel of Lanka. Once there, he scours the city for the abducted Princess Sita. The poet vividly describes the opulence of the court of the demon king, Rávana, the beauty of his harem, and the hideous deformity of Sita's wardresses. After witnessing Sita’s stern rejection of Rávana's blandishments, Hánuman reveals himself to the princess, shows her Rama's signet ring as proof of identity, and offers to carry her back to Rama.
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The skies darken for the exiles, who have taken refuge in forest hermitages. First one demon, then another, attempts to harm or corrupt them. When these efforts fail, an army of demons is sent, and then a bigger one, but each time Rama again defeats them. Finally Rávana, the supreme lord of the demons, decides to cripple Rama by capturing Sita; he traps her, and carries her off under heavy guard to the island fortress of Lanka. Rama is distraught by grief, and searches everywhere without success.
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The king decides to abdicate in favor of Rama; but just as the celebrations reach their climax, a court intrigue forces Rama and Sita into fourteen years banishment; they dutifully accept their fate, and go off to the jungle. The other brothers refuse to benefit from his misfortune, which leaves nobody to run the city; eventually one of them is persuaded to act as regent, but only consents to do so on condition that he lives outside the city and acts in Rama’s name.
“Ayódhya” is Book Two of Valmíki’s national Indian epic, The Ramáyana. The young hero Rama sets out willingly from the capital with wife and brother for a fourteen-year banishment, which will entail great suffering and further difficult choices in the books ahead. Of the seven books of this great Sanskrit epic, "Ayódhya" is the most human, and it remains one of the best introductions to the social and political values of traditional India.
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One of the great national epics of India that blends poetry and adventure to tell the origin story of the hero Rama
Rama, the crown prince of the City of Ayodhya, is a model son and warrior. He is sent by his father the king to rescue a sage from persecution by demons, but must first kill a fearsome ogress. That done, he drives out the demons, restores peace, and attends a tournament in the neighboring city of Mithila; here he bends the bow that no other warrior can handle, winning the prize and the hand of Sita, the princess of Mithila.
Valmíki's Ramáyana is one of the two great national epics of India, the source revered throughout South Asia as the original account of the career of Rama, ideal man and incarnation of the great god Vishnu. The first book, “Boyhood,” introduces the young hero Rama and sets the scene for the adventures ahead. It begins with a fascinating excursus on the origins and function of poetry itself.
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“Slender lady, I came out with you to gather fruit. I got a pain in my head and fell asleep in your lap. Then I saw a terrible darkness and a mighty person. If you know, then tell me - was it my dream? Or was what I saw real?”
So speaks Satyavat, newly rescued from the god of death by Savitri, his faithful wife, at the heart of one of the best loved stories in Indian literature. This, and other well known narratives, including a version of Rama's story, bring the Forest Book of the great Sanskrit epic, the Maha·bhárata, to its compelling conclusion. Woven into the main narrative of the Pandavas’ exile, these disparate episodes indicate the range and poetic power of the Maha·bhárata as a whole—a power that has the potential to speak to common human concerns across cultures and centuries.
“The Forest” is Book Three of the Maha·bhárata, “The Great Book of India.” This final quarter of the account of the Pándavas’ twelve-year exile in the forest contains four stirring stories that are among the best known in Indian literature. From a hero overcoming great odds, to a virtuous wife who rescues her family, and Indra tricking Karna, and Yudhi·shthira’s victory in the verbal contest with the tree spirit, these stories speak to common human concerns across cultures and centuries.
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

In one of the most famous passages in Maha·bhárata, Dur·yódhana, the heroic but flawed king of the Káuravas, meets his end when he is dishonorably defeated in battle by his arch-enemy, Bhima. Framing a fascinating account of the sacred sites along the river Sarásvati, the duel poignantly portrays the downfall of a once great hero in the face of a new order governed by Krishna, in which the warrior code is brushed aside in order to ensure the predestined triumph of the Pándavas.
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

The great war of the Maha bharata is over. Or is it? This is a single extended family wracked in conflict. Both sides succumbed to treachery. Ashva tthaman, the young leader of the three survivors on the losing side, is incensed at his father’s murder. He returns after dark to the now sleeping encampment. The sacrifice of the unsuspecting champions, the "Dead of Night," ensues. The five sons of Pandu have escaped. After a final confrontation, a missile crisis, Ashva tthaman concedes defeat but redirects his missile into the wombs of the victors’ women. They miscarry, and cannot hope for more children. Now the survivors, victors and vanquished, must struggle to comprehend their loss. "The Women" of both sides are confronted by their men’s mangled corpses in a masterpiece of horror and pathos. But their potent curses must be curbed to usher in a new era. Maha bharata Books Ten and Eleven give voice to the vanquished, to the psychology of loss and the conflicting desires for understanding and revenge.

The Book of Viráta details the Pándavas’ 13th year in exile, when they live disguised in King Viráta's court. They suffer the humiliation of becoming servants; a topic explored both through comedy and pathos. Having maintained their disguise until the very end of the year, then their troubles really begin. Bhima is forced to come to Dráupadi's rescue when King Viráta's general, Kíchaka, sets his sights on her. Duryódhana and the Tri·gartas decide to invade the defeated Viráta's kingdom, unaware the Pándavas are hidden there. In the ensuing battles the Pándavas play a crucial role, save Viráta and reveal their true identities. The book ends in celebration, with the Pándavas ready to return from exile and reclaim their kingdom. However, the battles in “Viráta” foreshadow the war to come, proving it will not be easy.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
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After Bhishma is cut down at the end of the previous book of the Maha·bhárata, the book which bears his name, Duryódhana selects Drona as leader of his forces. Drona accepts the honor with Bhishma's blessing, despite his ongoing personal conflicts as mentor to both the Pándava and Káurava heroes in their youth. The fighting rages on, with heavy losses on both sides. Furious and frustrated, Duryódhana accuses Drona of collaborating with the enemy, but he replies that as long as Árjuna is on the field, the Pándavas will remain invincible. When Árjuna is finally diverted from the main action of the battle, Yudhi·shthira entrusts Árjuna's son Abhimányu with the task of making a breach in the Káurava formation. Abhimányu rampages through Drona's army, but at last is cornered by several Káurava warriors and finally killed by Jayad·ratha.
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

The Book of Shalya recounts in gory detail the final destruction of the Káurava army and the defeat of its leader, Dur·yódhana. In this first volume heroic duels and martial speeches abound as Shalya, the king of the Madras, is made general of the Káurava army, only to be slaughtered in his turn.
The Book of Shalya recounts in gory detail the final destruction of the Káurava army and the defeat of its leader, Duryódhana. In this first volume heroic duels and martial speeches abound as Shalya, the king of the Madras, is made general of the Káurava army, only to be slaughtered in his turn.
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

“The Book of Karna” relates the events of the two dramatic days after the defeat of the great warriors and generals Bhishma and Drona, in which Karna, great hero and the eldest Pándava, leads the Káurava army into combat. This first volume of "Karna" depicts mighty battles in gory detail, sets the scene for Karna's tragic death, and includes a remarkable verbal duel between Karna and his reluctant charioteer Shalya, the king of the Madras, as they hurl abuse at each other before entering the fray.
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

The Great Hall relates some of the most seminal events of the epic, culminating in the famous game of dice between the Pándavas and the Káuravas. The Pándavas, happily settled in Indra·prastha, enjoy one glorious success after another. Yudhi·shthira, after erecting the most magnificent hall on earth, decides to perform the Royal Consecration Sacrifice, which will raise his status to that of the world's greatest sovereign. His brothers travel far and wide and conquer all known kingdoms. Yet just when the Pándavas are beginning to seem invincible, Yudhi·shthira mysteriously gambles everything away in a fateful game of dice to his cousin Duryódhana.
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

Volume Two of "Drona" begins in the aftermath of tragedy. As evening falls, Arjuna journeys wearily back to camp and is greeted by the ashen faces of his brothers. Before they speak, he guesses the worst. And the worst is right: his son Abhimanyu is dead. Arjuna is inconsolable. Insensible with rage, he vows to take revenge on the boy’s killers. He swears that if they are not dead before another day passes, he will set himself alight. The world seems to shudder at his words.

"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
"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·bhárat itself — Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartri·hari, the pungent satire of Jayánta 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 Clay Sanskrit Library has recently set out to change the scene by making available well-translated dual-language (English and Sanskrit) editions of popular Sanskritic texts for the public.”
—Namarupa
The second volume of “Preparations for War” seals the fate of the Pándavas and Kurus. This book is the turning point of the entire Maha·bhárata. The failure of diplomacy ensures war is now inevitable, and with this realization come dramatic arguments, miracles and temptations. The Maha·bhárata explores timeless problems of humanity, and in this volume of “Preparations for War,” it explores the realities of human nature in times of conflict. The lust for power and bloodshed overwhelms all attempts at negotiation.Interwoven with these serious issues come beautiful accountsof divinities, magical realms and legendary marvels.

One of the three surviving plays by Kali dasa (fifth century), universally acknowledged as the supreme poet in classical Sanskrit, How Urvashi Was Won, like the other two, is a masterpiece of lyricism, subtle characterization, and the working through of a bold theme. How Urvashi Was Won is the story of King Puru ravas and his love for an immortal, the dancer Urvashi, who normally lives in the heaven of the gods but who has come down to earth in order to realize her passion for the alltoo- mortal king. The tragic love of this asymmetrical couple was described already in the ancient "Rig Veda" and later often expanded. Kali dasa has reworked the narrative so as to depict a goddess in the process of becoming fully, and dangerously, human—since only human beings (at their best) are, in Kali dasa’s vision, truly capable of the depths and intricacies of loving. This great work of love, loss, and eventual restoration speaks to the human condition generally in highly nuanced verses, accessible to any modern reader.

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