The Great Classics Of India

A notable critic has aptly remarked that a nation which has no past has no present. There are nations which had a hoary part but no notable present. In this respect India is an exception. It had a great past, has great present and is destined to have a great future because its literary and cultural roots are very deep. Right from the daya of Vedic poets till the advent of Tagore, India has produced a procession of great poets, philosophers and thinkers. The ancient poets and writers have left for posterity unique literary works which have endured and entertained mankind all through the ages. These great classics have been translated by deligent scholars into modern languages which have delighted the ment of light and learning so much so that they have now been ranked among world?s literary masterpieces. The present volume comprises the English translation of the four great classics of India and briefly described in the succeeding paragraphs Hitopadesan or the Book of Good Counses. IT has been translated from Sanskrit by Sir Edwin Arnold. It is a work of high antiquity and extended popularity. It has been rightly styled as the ?Father of all Fables? and from its numerous translations have come Aesop, Pilpay and Reeneke Fuchs. Its author is Vishnu Sharma who undertook to teach the dullheaded, spoilt princes, the sons of King Sudarsana of the ancient kingdom of Pataliputra. Nala and Damayanti selected from the MAHABHARATA and translated by Sir Edwin Arnold. The episode of Nala and Damayanti is one of the most charming stories of Maharashtra. When its translation appeared for the first time in European languages, it created a sensation in the literary world. King Nala and princess Damayanti had already heard of each other?s unrivalled beauty and endearing qualities and had secretly pledged to marry. They had conveyed, mutual consent through the ministration of swans. In the venue of Swamwara the four immortal gods who had sworn to marry Damayanti had taken the form, grap and visage of Nala?s ownself so as the hoodwink Damayanti. But she more kill fully separated the gods from Nala by winning their affection and placed bridal garland round the neck of her lord. Selection from the Ramayana by Valmiki and translated by R.T.H. Griffiths. Ramayana and Mahabharata are the two ancient epics of India. The former is the rest in Indian literature. Its author sage poet, Valmiki, was perhaps the first poet of mankind. Ramayana is a veritable code of moral values and cherished ideals. Rama and Sita are the Hindu ideals of a perfect man and perfect woman. The story of Ramayana is too well-known to be recapitulated here. Sakoontala by Kalidasa translated by Sir Monier Monier-Williams. The greatest of dramatists in the Sanskrit language is undoubtedly Kalidasa, the Shakespeare of India. His masterpiece and indeed the masterpiece of Indian drama is Sakoontala which has all the graces of oriental poetry. The drama is divided into seven acts and is a mixture of prose and verse each character rising in the intensity of emotional utterance into bursts of lyric poetry. Its story is too well-known to be recalled here. Ballads of Hindustan and Miscellaneous Poems by Toru Dutt. With an Introduction of Edmund W. Goose Toru Dutta?s appearance on the literary scene of India her amazing literary caliber and her premature and at the tender age of 21 years on 30-8-1877 are alas, the saddest story and also the most tragic episode in the literary history of the world. The world has been deprived of an amazing genius which would have risen to any heights. Her first literary effort ?Sheaf Gleaned in French fields? is a wonderful mixture of strength and weakness of genius overriding great obstacles and of talent succumbing to ignorance and inexperience. But judging from her short life, she has joined the rank of literacy immortals of history. This volume, with its rich haul of five great classics of India, is a literary gem of inestimable