'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 "Mahabharat" itself
- Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the
English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy
verse of Bhartrihari, 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 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". 'By any
measure the "Ramayana" of Valmiki is one of the great
epic poems of world literature...Now the New York
University Press is republishing the translations,
without notes and with minimal introductions, in more
accessible and less expensive editions, as part of the
Clay Sanskrit Library. So far the translators have been
eminently successful' - "The New York Sun" [Refers to
the nine volumes of the Ramayana]. 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. "Ayodhya" is Book Two of Valmiki's national
Indian epic, "The Ramayana". 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,
"Ayodhya" is the most human, and it remains one of the
best introductions to the social and political values of
traditional India. It is co-published by New York
University Press and the JJC Foundation.
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