Just the other day, I ran into this interesting website, and I am sharing it here in the hope that it may be of interest at least to a few members of the forum: http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org/CES_seduced_sanskrit.php
I am providing an abbreviated summary of the article here: Seduced by Sanskrit - Willis G. Regier
The New York University Press (has) launched the Clay Sanskrit Library, The library bears the name of its guiding financier, John Clay, a scholar-millionaire who studied Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, graduated with honors, then made a fortune by investing in Japan when Japanese business was moving into high-end engineering. In November 1999, Clay contacted Richard Gombrich, a professor emeritus of Sanskrit at Oxford, and proposed that they undertake a project, which envisioned 100 handsome books, everyone a fresh translation of a Sanskrit classic. Clay wanted affordable editions that could be read with pleasure. Gombrich, who loved the idea, is now general editor of the series. The Clay series, according to Sanskrit scholar Sheldon I. Pollock, is “the most important development in the popularization of Sanskrit studies in the West since their inception two centuries ago.”
The Clay volumes will include three fifth-century works by Kalidasa, The first, already out, is his long poem, The Birth of Kumara (Kumarasambhava, translated by David Smith), a court epic in which the war god Kumara is not yet born but is anticipated in the meeting and wedding of his parents, Uma and Shiva. Love, ascetism, eroticism, and spirituality all come together. Also : “The Cloud Messenger” ( Meghasandesam, translated by Sir James Mallinson), which delves into the many moods of love, and The Recognition of Shakuntala (Abigyana Sakuntalam,translated by Somadeva Vasudeva), which presents the wooing of a modest young woman by a mighty king, Isabelle Onians has a volume on Dandin’s What Ten Young Men Did, (Dasakumaracharitham) an adventure book. A teenage prince suddenly disappears, and his nine friends scatter in all directions to look for him. When they reunite, each has an amazing story to tell. Vasudeva’s translation of Kshemendra’s The Grace of Guile (in the volume Three Satires) gives early proof that the Clay series will introduce works seldom seen on lists of Sanskrit classics. The series also amply demonstrates that Sanskrit literature allows imagination to range. For an early sighting of a flying machine, look to the translation of Budhasvamin’s The Emperor of the Sorcerers, translated by Mallinson.
Other books introduce portions of the Sanskrit epics the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The volumes of the Ramayana are reprinted under license from Princeton, which has itself announced but not yet scheduled three more volumes. At roughly half the price, the Clay volumes - so far Ramayana Book One: Boyhood (translated by Robert P. Goldman), Ramayana Book Two: Ayodhya (translated by Pollock), and Ramayana Book Four: Kishkindha (translated by Rosalind Lefeber) - are more likely to lure the shy.
The Mahabharata is very deep and very long - longer than the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Thebaid, Beowulf, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, and even The Da Vinci Code combined. It has been often abridged and retold, and translated into English more or less in its entirety twice before, in the 19th century, first by K.M. Ganguli and then by M.N. Dutt.
In the last pages of “What is a Classic?,” Sainte-Beuve imagined literary paradise. He saw Virgil, Horace, Montaigne, and others conversing on a hill, while Voltaire paced about impatiently. First among them all was Homer, “likest a god”; with him were Vyasa and Valmiki, the legendary authors of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, “so long ignored by us.” Today excuses for ignorance are fast disappearing.
Willis G. Regier, director of the University of Illinois Press.
Just the other day, I ran into this interesting website, and I am sharing it here in the hope that it may be of interest at least to a few members of the forum: http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org/CES_seduced_sanskrit.php
I am providing an abbreviated summary of the article here: Seduced by Sanskrit - Willis G. Regier
The New York University Press (has) launched the Clay Sanskrit Library, The library bears the name of its guiding financier, John Clay, a scholar-millionaire who studied Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, graduated with honors, then made a fortune by investing in Japan when Japanese business was moving into high-end engineering. In November 1999, Clay contacted Richard Gombrich, a professor emeritus of Sanskrit at Oxford, and proposed that they undertake a project, which envisioned 100 handsome books, everyone a fresh translation of a Sanskrit classic. Clay wanted affordable editions that could be read with pleasure. Gombrich, who loved the idea, is now general editor of the series. The Clay series, according to Sanskrit scholar Sheldon I. Pollock, is “the most important development in the popularization of Sanskrit studies in the West since their inception two centuries ago.”
The Clay volumes will include three fifth-century works by Kalidasa, The first, already out, is his long poem, The Birth of Kumara (Kumarasambhava, translated by David Smith), a court epic in which the war god Kumara is not yet born but is anticipated in the meeting and wedding of his parents, Uma and Shiva. Love, ascetism, eroticism, and spirituality all come together. Also : “The Cloud Messenger” ( Meghasandesam, translated by Sir James Mallinson), which delves into the many moods of love, and The Recognition of Shakuntala (Abigyana Sakuntalam,translated by Somadeva Vasudeva), which presents the wooing of a modest young woman by a mighty king, Isabelle Onians has a volume on Dandin’s What Ten Young Men Did, (Dasakumaracharitham) an adventure book. A teenage prince suddenly disappears, and his nine friends scatter in all directions to look for him. When they reunite, each has an amazing story to tell. Vasudeva’s translation of Kshemendra’s The Grace of Guile (in the volume Three Satires) gives early proof that the Clay series will introduce works seldom seen on lists of Sanskrit classics. The series also amply demonstrates that Sanskrit literature allows imagination to range. For an early sighting of a flying machine, look to the translation of Budhasvamin’s The Emperor of the Sorcerers, translated by Mallinson.
Other books introduce portions of the Sanskrit epics the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The volumes of the Ramayana are reprinted under license from Princeton, which has itself announced but not yet scheduled three more volumes. At roughly half the price, the Clay volumes - so far Ramayana Book One: Boyhood (translated by Robert P. Goldman), Ramayana Book Two: Ayodhya (translated by Pollock), and Ramayana Book Four: Kishkindha (translated by Rosalind Lefeber) - are more likely to lure the shy.
The Mahabharata is very deep and very long - longer than the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Thebaid, Beowulf, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, and even The Da Vinci Code combined. It has been often abridged and retold, and translated into English more or less in its entirety twice before, in the 19th century, first by K.M. Ganguli and then by M.N. Dutt.
In the last pages of “What is a Classic?,” Sainte-Beuve imagined literary paradise. He saw Virgil, Horace, Montaigne, and others conversing on a hill, while Voltaire paced about impatiently. First among them all was Homer, “likest a god”; with him were Vyasa and Valmiki, the legendary authors of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, “so long ignored by us.” Today excuses for ignorance are fast disappearing.
Willis G. Regier, director of the University of Illinois Press.
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Hi Ramani Sir,
Thank you and its always nice to read things that can educate us. Knowledge is Power.
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Originally Posted by Ramani 
