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Magadh
Poetry. South Asia Studies. Translated from the Hindi by Rahul Soni. MAGADH, Shrikant Verma's crowning achievement, was published in Hindi in 1984 and has established itself as one of the key works of late 20th century Indian poetry. Speaking both archly and urgently through unreliable narrators—commoners, statesmen, wanderers, people close to power (but never in power)—often like a kind of prudent and duplicitous advice for the ears of monarchs, the 56 poems range widely in tone from nostalgic to ironic to bitter to sorrowful.
"Twentieth century Indian poetry has seldom been translated well, and very rarely as well as Rahul Soni's rendering of this Hindi classic."—Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
"Twentieth century Indian poetry has seldom been translated well, and very rarely as well as Rahul Soni's rendering of this Hindi classic."—Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
- GenresPoetryIndiaNonfiction
176 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 28, 2024
A beautiful collection of stories set around the kingdom of Magadh.
February 22, 2026
The council is unnecessary
everyone has already been judged
before they are born
everyone has already been judged
before they are born
February 1, 2024
I was looking to read poetry in translation and through Champaca's recommendation chanced upon Rahul Soni's translation of Shrikant Verma's opus "Magadh". Verma was not just one of the stalwarts of "Nayi Kavita", he was a spokesperson of the Congress party during Emergency, and this collection marries his sensibility as a poet with the fears and frustrations of a political insider.
Magadh, Kosambi, Vaishali, Taxila, Nalanda. The names are familiar from history books. But in the book, they are largely metaphorical and used to communicate a certain disenchantment with the socio-political reality of the day. To quote from the introduction, 'As the poet says, But the poet himself has made it clear that the Magadh of this poem is not the Magadh of history: ‘this is not the Magadh you’ve read about in books,’ he cautions his readers.'
Reading the poems in today's context is particularly thought provoking. The themes continue to be relevant, maybe more so than when the book was written.
'Maharaj, haven’t you wondered how anyone can be happy and not say a thing?', could describe today's reality, proving yet again that everything is cyclical, since we never seem to be able to learn from history.
When I came to the end of the book, I hesitated only for a moment before getting the Hindi original. I look forward to reading them simultaneously.
I end with the last poem of the book (in the original and the translation)-
‘A Year of Poems’
जो लिखा,
व्यर्थ था
जो नहीं लिखा,
अनर्थ था
What I wrote,
useless
What I did not,
meaningless
Magadh, Kosambi, Vaishali, Taxila, Nalanda. The names are familiar from history books. But in the book, they are largely metaphorical and used to communicate a certain disenchantment with the socio-political reality of the day. To quote from the introduction, 'As the poet says, But the poet himself has made it clear that the Magadh of this poem is not the Magadh of history: ‘this is not the Magadh you’ve read about in books,’ he cautions his readers.'
Reading the poems in today's context is particularly thought provoking. The themes continue to be relevant, maybe more so than when the book was written.
'Maharaj, haven’t you wondered how anyone can be happy and not say a thing?', could describe today's reality, proving yet again that everything is cyclical, since we never seem to be able to learn from history.
When I came to the end of the book, I hesitated only for a moment before getting the Hindi original. I look forward to reading them simultaneously.
I end with the last poem of the book (in the original and the translation)-
‘A Year of Poems’
जो लिखा,
व्यर्थ था
जो नहीं लिखा,
अनर्थ था
What I wrote,
useless
What I did not,
meaningless
November 29, 2025
a reminder how painfully sterile a translation can be
August 15, 2023
I picked this recommendation from Mint Lounge of last week and expected it to be something really amazing as had just finished a wonderful book in Hindi. Not so much. To me it was quite underwhelming and passable.
November 29, 2020
*** TO ENTER DETAILED REVIEW SOON ***.
Gem of a collection. Shrikant Verma's best.
Gem of a collection. Shrikant Verma's best.
January 1, 2024
As we read a book of poems, the world around us becomes more muted and yet louder at the same time. I read somewhere recently that there’s nothing that a good book of poems cannot help us resolve, from broken hearts to tired minds. ‘Magadh’, in its deeply despairing and desolate world, is a shining testament to this fact.
I have never felt more incapable to comment on a book. The poems in this volume landed heavily on my mind and heart.
As Rahul Soni, the translator of the poems, writes in his introductory note—even as the poems are titled and suggestively allegorical in their content—the historical references scattered through them are like ‘totems’. All great art, as he suggests, is more than just about a particular moment or place. It creates, in my opinion, wormholes.
Reading these poems—which are impossible to describe in terms of a consistent theme or subject—is an enchanting experience. They are about ‘Kaal’. Which roughly and dully translates in English to Time. But the inherent sense of dispossession and decay-dismay are the additional merits that the word has in Hindi. These are poems about the banality of grand narratives, from nationalism to totalitarianism (are they same?) and poems about the the self-consuming, ouroboros quality of human endeavours, power and history.
I also loved these poems, because of the way that they understand and recreate places, and indeed, allow, through the medium of words, an access to a riveting spatialised reading. As you inhabit the worlds within these poems, and constantly realize how profoundly they capture the reality of our own—from pandemics and juridical silences to religious delusions and political assassinations—something shifts in your mind. If enough of these shifts happen, perhaps we can be better prepared for General Elections next year.
Read it, it’s outrageously brilliant.
I have never felt more incapable to comment on a book. The poems in this volume landed heavily on my mind and heart.
As Rahul Soni, the translator of the poems, writes in his introductory note—even as the poems are titled and suggestively allegorical in their content—the historical references scattered through them are like ‘totems’. All great art, as he suggests, is more than just about a particular moment or place. It creates, in my opinion, wormholes.
Reading these poems—which are impossible to describe in terms of a consistent theme or subject—is an enchanting experience. They are about ‘Kaal’. Which roughly and dully translates in English to Time. But the inherent sense of dispossession and decay-dismay are the additional merits that the word has in Hindi. These are poems about the banality of grand narratives, from nationalism to totalitarianism (are they same?) and poems about the the self-consuming, ouroboros quality of human endeavours, power and history.
I also loved these poems, because of the way that they understand and recreate places, and indeed, allow, through the medium of words, an access to a riveting spatialised reading. As you inhabit the worlds within these poems, and constantly realize how profoundly they capture the reality of our own—from pandemics and juridical silences to religious delusions and political assassinations—something shifts in your mind. If enough of these shifts happen, perhaps we can be better prepared for General Elections next year.
Read it, it’s outrageously brilliant.
August 18, 2021
Judge for yourself. A poem from this book.
कोई छींकता तक नहीं
इस डर से
कि मगध की शांति
भंग न हो जाय,
मगध को बनाए रखना है, तो,
मगध में शांति
रहनी ही चाहिए
मगध है, तो शांति है
मगध है, तो शांति है
कोई चीखता तक नहीं
इस डर से
कि मगध की व्यवस्था में
दखल न पड़ जाय
मगध में व्यवस्था रहनी ही चाहिए
मगध में न रही
तो कहाँ रहेगी?
क्या कहेंगे लोग?
लोगों का क्या?
लोगों का क्या?
लोग तो यह भी कहते हैं
मगध अब कहने को मगध है,
रहने को नहीं
कोई टोकता तक नहीं
इस डर से
कि मगध में
टोकने का रिवाज न बन जाय
एक बार शुरू होने पर
कहीं नहीं रुकता हस्तक्षेप
कहीं नहीं रुकता हस्तक्षेप -
वैसे तो मगधनिवासियो
कितना भी कतराओ
तुम बच नहीं सकते हस्तक्षेप से -
जब कोई नहीं करता
तब नगर के बीच से गुजरता हुआ
मुर्दा
यह प्रश्न कर हस्तक्षेप करता है -
मनुष्य क्यों मरता है?
कोई छींकता तक नहीं
इस डर से
कि मगध की शांति
भंग न हो जाय,
मगध को बनाए रखना है, तो,
मगध में शांति
रहनी ही चाहिए
मगध है, तो शांति है
मगध है, तो शांति है
कोई चीखता तक नहीं
इस डर से
कि मगध की व्यवस्था में
दखल न पड़ जाय
मगध में व्यवस्था रहनी ही चाहिए
मगध में न रही
तो कहाँ रहेगी?
क्या कहेंगे लोग?
लोगों का क्या?
लोगों का क्या?
लोग तो यह भी कहते हैं
मगध अब कहने को मगध है,
रहने को नहीं
कोई टोकता तक नहीं
इस डर से
कि मगध में
टोकने का रिवाज न बन जाय
एक बार शुरू होने पर
कहीं नहीं रुकता हस्तक्षेप
कहीं नहीं रुकता हस्तक्षेप -
वैसे तो मगधनिवासियो
कितना भी कतराओ
तुम बच नहीं सकते हस्तक्षेप से -
जब कोई नहीं करता
तब नगर के बीच से गुजरता हुआ
मुर्दा
यह प्रश्न कर हस्तक्षेप करता है -
मनुष्य क्यों मरता है?
May 9, 2026
Original Hindu poems about the Magadh Kingdom and life generally. Narrated by various people, the poems are simple to understand. I enjoyed it for its simplicity, brevity and the curiosity it brings. The translator did a great job.
However, it won’t make sense to the average non-Indian reader or history buff. You will need a background knowledge of the history of the Magadh Empire and its key players.
However, it won’t make sense to the average non-Indian reader or history buff. You will need a background knowledge of the history of the Magadh Empire and its key players.
October 28, 2025
I'm lousy at reading poetry. I find it difficult, both to concentrate on and to understand. I can't pretend I unlocked the mysteries of Magadh, but I have to say I really rather enjoyed it. Is that enough? For a first read, maybe.
Read
February 4, 2026" जिसका रोहिताश्व
मारा गया हो,
क्या तुम उसे
विश्वास दिला सकते हो
कि तुम
रोहिताश्व नहीं हो ? "
" पाटलिपुत्र में
रात
गहरा
रही
है "
मारा गया हो,
क्या तुम उसे
विश्वास दिला सकते हो
कि तुम
रोहिताश्व नहीं हो ? "
" पाटलिपुत्र में
रात
गहरा
रही
है "
March 5, 2026
Shares poetic themes with Shelley’s Ozymandias. A haunting collection that ruminates on the ruins of the world through time.
Listen my fellow traveller,
here,
take
my hand-
help me
across the road
Listen my fellow traveller,
here,
take
my hand-
help me
across the road
January 25, 2019
Read only in Hindi.
August 20, 2022
Marvellous work. Absolute must read. Subtle yet powerful messages. Could get a sense of existentialism, empathy with public innocence as well as a political satire.
June 2, 2024
It blows my mind that this collection was written by the man who coined the term ‘Garibi Hatao’ for Indira Gandhi’s 1971 campaign. How strange the turns of a mind through a lifetime.
October 7, 2025
ISBN
9781916751330 (paperback edition)
A series of spare, enigmatic poems describe the rise, corruption, descent into autocracy, and fall of governments and empires amidst a complacent populace.
9781916751330 (paperback edition)
A series of spare, enigmatic poems describe the rise, corruption, descent into autocracy, and fall of governments and empires amidst a complacent populace.
December 31, 2025
Got the vibe, had fun.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Magadh was an eastern Indian empire that flourished from 6th-century to 2nd-century BCE before entering a precipitous decline. Shrikant Verma’s poems in Magadh, written between 1979 and 1984, place the Magadh empire in the larger context of Indian history, culture, and mythology, although familiarity with these components is unnecessary to understand and appreciate these poems, since they deal with such universal constants as the rise and fall of civilizations, the causes of those cycles, and their results. Thus, Time is also a major figure in these poems, and if the place names seem alien, given the poems’ universality, an approximation of the feelings created by the poems can be achieved by exchanging place names cited in the poems with place names readers are familiar with: the historical forces acting upon them are roughly the same from civilization to civilization.
After the invocation that begins the cycle, Verma tells us that “this is not the Magadh / you’ve read about / in books, / this is the Magadh / that you / like me / have lost.” This loss is common to all humanity—death, forgetfulness, and erasure the fate of all who live and have lived. In his poem “Corpses in Kashi,” Verma asks, “Have you seen Kashi? / Where / corpses come and / corpses go / by the same road. . . // Whoever it was, whoever it wasn’t / did it make a difference?”
The futility of resistance, like the futility of conquer, owe to the work of Time. All people can bring to their lives is dharma—the personal choice to behave righteously, no matter what: it’s the only escape from the cycle of eternal rebirth into this hurtful world.
Although the eternal cycle contains plenty of misery and forgetfulness, the traces of past lives that do remain are those produced by “singers, sculptors, poets”—the people who actually create the nations we remember, not their “wealth, armies, ministers” (“Why Not Mithila?”). Verma completes that thought in “Vaishali 2”:
Vaishali is not a city
it is the memory
of those who came
before us—
of those who said
We’ll last Vaishali will last.
And if we don’t?
Vaishali will last.
In this book of oppositions—is a person coming or going, is a culture rising or falling, why is that which is condemned in one place praised in another—these dualities twine around each other in the past and future in a constant present where the only change is that of what mutable temporal focus.
For more of my reviews please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
After the invocation that begins the cycle, Verma tells us that “this is not the Magadh / you’ve read about / in books, / this is the Magadh / that you / like me / have lost.” This loss is common to all humanity—death, forgetfulness, and erasure the fate of all who live and have lived. In his poem “Corpses in Kashi,” Verma asks, “Have you seen Kashi? / Where / corpses come and / corpses go / by the same road. . . // Whoever it was, whoever it wasn’t / did it make a difference?”
The futility of resistance, like the futility of conquer, owe to the work of Time. All people can bring to their lives is dharma—the personal choice to behave righteously, no matter what: it’s the only escape from the cycle of eternal rebirth into this hurtful world.
Although the eternal cycle contains plenty of misery and forgetfulness, the traces of past lives that do remain are those produced by “singers, sculptors, poets”—the people who actually create the nations we remember, not their “wealth, armies, ministers” (“Why Not Mithila?”). Verma completes that thought in “Vaishali 2”:
Vaishali is not a city
it is the memory
of those who came
before us—
of those who said
We’ll last Vaishali will last.
And if we don’t?
Vaishali will last.
In this book of oppositions—is a person coming or going, is a culture rising or falling, why is that which is condemned in one place praised in another—these dualities twine around each other in the past and future in a constant present where the only change is that of what mutable temporal focus.
For more of my reviews please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
April 28, 2024
जो लिखा
व्यर्थ था
जो नहीं लिखा
अनर्थ था।
- श्रीकांत वर्मा
व्यर्थ था
जो नहीं लिखा
अनर्थ था।
- श्रीकांत वर्मा
September 3, 2025
very strongly reminds me of invisible cities
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews