Ramayana Book One

'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.