'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"]. 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. Valmiki's "Ramayana" 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. It is co-published by New
York University Press and the JJC Foundation.
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