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Ten Indian Classics
2,500 years of India’s dazzling literary tradition, translated from a wide range of classical languages, and introduced by an award-winning poet.
Romantic ghazals and devotional quatrains, medieval battles and separated lovers, Buddhist women on their journeys toward nirvana and Ram’s battle against a demon army to rescue Sita—all this and more can be found in the Murty Classical Library of India’s Ten Indian Classics.
Beginning in the sixth century B.C.E. and coming up to the eighteenth century, spanning the Indian subcontinent, the selections in this anthology include some of the oldest women’s writing in the world, exquisite Sanskrit court poems, verses from the Sikh sacred tradition recited by millions around the world, the renowned chronicle of the Mughal emperor Akbar, and Tulsidas’s retelling of the epic Ramayana that is cherished in north India to this day. Here, too, are the poems of Surdas, Mir Taqi Mir, and Bullhe Shah, which continue to inspire artists today and live on in contemporary music.
The anthology showcases original translations by leading experts from a vast array of India’s literary Hindi, Kannada, Pali, Panjabi, Persian, Sanskrit, Telugu, and Urdu. With a foreword by the award-winning poet and translator Ranjit Hoskote, Ten Indian Classics is an invitation to readers worldwide to immerse themselves in a literary tradition that continues to shape modern South Asian culture and aesthetics in all its stunning diversity.
Romantic ghazals and devotional quatrains, medieval battles and separated lovers, Buddhist women on their journeys toward nirvana and Ram’s battle against a demon army to rescue Sita—all this and more can be found in the Murty Classical Library of India’s Ten Indian Classics.
Beginning in the sixth century B.C.E. and coming up to the eighteenth century, spanning the Indian subcontinent, the selections in this anthology include some of the oldest women’s writing in the world, exquisite Sanskrit court poems, verses from the Sikh sacred tradition recited by millions around the world, the renowned chronicle of the Mughal emperor Akbar, and Tulsidas’s retelling of the epic Ramayana that is cherished in north India to this day. Here, too, are the poems of Surdas, Mir Taqi Mir, and Bullhe Shah, which continue to inspire artists today and live on in contemporary music.
The anthology showcases original translations by leading experts from a vast array of India’s literary Hindi, Kannada, Pali, Panjabi, Persian, Sanskrit, Telugu, and Urdu. With a foreword by the award-winning poet and translator Ranjit Hoskote, Ten Indian Classics is an invitation to readers worldwide to immerse themselves in a literary tradition that continues to shape modern South Asian culture and aesthetics in all its stunning diversity.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published January 28, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 13, 2024
Indian culture is a vast ocean, a composite of many cultures, flowing across time and space. So unsurprisingly, Indian classical literature is extremely colourful and varied, speaking in many different cadences, with many different tongues, about many different subjects varying from war to love to devotion to lust. It climbs the lofty heights of philosophy at one moment, only to descent into a whirlpool sensuality the next. It's too rich to digest sometimes, like the country itself.
The Murty Classical Library of India does a commendable job of publishing this classic literature for the benefit of aficionados. Their usual method is to print the original on the left page, and the translation on the facing page. But in this collection, there are only the translations.
The ten classics included in the book are:
1. Selected poems from the Therigatha. These poems, written in Pali, are by the first Buddhist nuns; mostly dealing with their enlightenment and renunciation of worldly comforts. I was surprised see that many of them talk about rebirth, karma, and hell - concepts alien to the original Buddhist philosophy, which is atheistic. These must have come due to later Hindu influence.
2. A selection from the poet Bharavi's Sanskrit narrative poem, Kiratarjuneeya (written between fourth and seventh century C. E). The warrior hero Arjuna is trying to propitiate Indra, lord of the Devas, to obtain divine weapons to go to war against his cousins. Indra comes in disguise to him and to test him, asks him to renounce his military ambitions - arguments which Arjuna counters with ease. This is, in fact, a reversal of the Bhagavad Gita where Lord Krishna persuades a reluctant Arjuna to fight.
3. A selection from The Life of Harishchandra by the Kannada poet Raghavanka (thirteenth century). Harishchandra was a just and honest king whose integrity was tested by the Gods, rather like the Biblical Job.
4. A selection from The Story of Manu by the Telugu poet Allasani Peddanna, who thrived in the court of Krishnadeva Raya, ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire. It narrates the story of Svarochisa Manu, son of Syambhuva Manu (the Manus are a lineage of mythical Indian kings).
5. Selections from the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs, written by the founder of the religion Guru Nanak. The subtle beauty of these poems made me sad because I did not know Punjabi, and therefore could not read them in the original!
6. Selections from Surdas's works, the devotional poet who lived in North India in the sixteenth century. His poems are all about the amorous love between Krishna and his bevy of besotted milkmaids, led by Radha. This is a symbolic way of representing the devotee's love for God, as per the Indian tradition.
7. A selection from Ramcharitmanas - Ramayana as retold by Tulsidas, a North Indian poet from the sixteenth century. He is the person responsible for making Ramayana accessible to the common man, and for transforming Rama into a God from a warrior hero.
8. A Selection from The Life of Akbar by Abu'l-Fazl, the court historian of the third Mogul Emperor. The only prose piece in the whole collection.
9. Selections from Bullhe Shah's Sufi lyrics (eighteenth century). Sufism syncretised Islam and Hinduism, and a host of other religions. It posits God as the embodiment of love, and the ultimate aim of the devotee is to merge with the godhead. The poems are all love songs!
10. Selections from Mir Taqi Mir's Ghazals (eighteenth century). Love songs, beautifully rendered, to symbolically express the love of the soul for God, in the Sufi tradition.
A good introduction to India.
The Murty Classical Library of India does a commendable job of publishing this classic literature for the benefit of aficionados. Their usual method is to print the original on the left page, and the translation on the facing page. But in this collection, there are only the translations.
The ten classics included in the book are:
1. Selected poems from the Therigatha. These poems, written in Pali, are by the first Buddhist nuns; mostly dealing with their enlightenment and renunciation of worldly comforts. I was surprised see that many of them talk about rebirth, karma, and hell - concepts alien to the original Buddhist philosophy, which is atheistic. These must have come due to later Hindu influence.
2. A selection from the poet Bharavi's Sanskrit narrative poem, Kiratarjuneeya (written between fourth and seventh century C. E). The warrior hero Arjuna is trying to propitiate Indra, lord of the Devas, to obtain divine weapons to go to war against his cousins. Indra comes in disguise to him and to test him, asks him to renounce his military ambitions - arguments which Arjuna counters with ease. This is, in fact, a reversal of the Bhagavad Gita where Lord Krishna persuades a reluctant Arjuna to fight.
3. A selection from The Life of Harishchandra by the Kannada poet Raghavanka (thirteenth century). Harishchandra was a just and honest king whose integrity was tested by the Gods, rather like the Biblical Job.
4. A selection from The Story of Manu by the Telugu poet Allasani Peddanna, who thrived in the court of Krishnadeva Raya, ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire. It narrates the story of Svarochisa Manu, son of Syambhuva Manu (the Manus are a lineage of mythical Indian kings).
5. Selections from the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs, written by the founder of the religion Guru Nanak. The subtle beauty of these poems made me sad because I did not know Punjabi, and therefore could not read them in the original!
6. Selections from Surdas's works, the devotional poet who lived in North India in the sixteenth century. His poems are all about the amorous love between Krishna and his bevy of besotted milkmaids, led by Radha. This is a symbolic way of representing the devotee's love for God, as per the Indian tradition.
7. A selection from Ramcharitmanas - Ramayana as retold by Tulsidas, a North Indian poet from the sixteenth century. He is the person responsible for making Ramayana accessible to the common man, and for transforming Rama into a God from a warrior hero.
8. A Selection from The Life of Akbar by Abu'l-Fazl, the court historian of the third Mogul Emperor. The only prose piece in the whole collection.
9. Selections from Bullhe Shah's Sufi lyrics (eighteenth century). Sufism syncretised Islam and Hinduism, and a host of other religions. It posits God as the embodiment of love, and the ultimate aim of the devotee is to merge with the godhead. The poems are all love songs!
10. Selections from Mir Taqi Mir's Ghazals (eighteenth century). Love songs, beautifully rendered, to symbolically express the love of the soul for God, in the Sufi tradition.
A good introduction to India.
February 16, 2025
I found the book interesting as it contains excerpts from ten Indian classics, ranging from the Therigatha (a collection of poems by Buddhist nuns) to the poetry of Mir. Personally, I would have preferred if the text had the original language alongside the translations, maybe in Latin or Devanagari script.
After reading the translated excerpts of the Ramcharitmanas (specifically the Lanka Kaand), I realized that, no matter how beautiful the translation is, it cannot fully convey the richness of the original text. For example, it is challenging to incorporate various Alankars into a translation; mostly, the semantic meaning can be conveyed.
However, the book was definitely successful in sparking my interest in some classic texts. Bharavi's Kirataarjuniyam, poems from the Guru Granth Sahib, and the Harishchandra Kavya by Raghavanka are now on my reading list for the future.
After reading the translated excerpts of the Ramcharitmanas (specifically the Lanka Kaand), I realized that, no matter how beautiful the translation is, it cannot fully convey the richness of the original text. For example, it is challenging to incorporate various Alankars into a translation; mostly, the semantic meaning can be conveyed.
However, the book was definitely successful in sparking my interest in some classic texts. Bharavi's Kirataarjuniyam, poems from the Guru Granth Sahib, and the Harishchandra Kavya by Raghavanka are now on my reading list for the future.
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February 2, 2025Classics are too often equated with English texts and Western stories—a lingering colonial bias that erases the profound literary traditions of other cultures and languages. It’s time to challenge this narrow lens. For readers seeking to expand what constitutes classic literature, “Ten Indian Classics” offers the perfect starting point—a collection of excerpts that take readers an epic journey through India's historic literary tradition across time, religion, and language.
Readers begin with the “Therigatha”, Buddhist women’s poems in Pali about transcending worldly attachments. Next is “Arjuna and the Hunter,” a Sanskrit tale from the “Mahabharata” featuring Arjuna’s battle with Shiva in disguise; “The Life of Harishchandra,” a poem in Kannada about a king devoted to the truth and his journey to get there; and “The Story of Manu” is a Telugu poem that illustrates a beautiful journey through nature of a Brahman man on his way to be a king. The anthology then transitions to Punjabi for “Poems from the Guru Granth Sahib,” celebrating universal truths within all, and later, “Selections from Sufi Lyrics” that explore unity and love as both delight and torment. Braj Bhasha’s “Sur’s Ocean” highlights Krishna’s life, while a translation of “The Epic of Ram,” tells the beloved tale of Ram and Sita. The anthology’s sole narrative, “The History of Akbar,” originally in Persian, recounts Akbar’s early life and achievements.
My personal favorite was the last collection: Mir Taqi Mir’s “Selected Ghazals and Other Poems.” Mir reflects on love—its omnipresence, beauty, and heartbreak—making the heart softer and more connected to the divine.
What makes this anthology particularly compelling is how it weaves together the spiritual, the philosophical, and the deeply personal. Each tale is a window into a specific microcosm of India’s communities and history, yet the themes resonate universally and into the modern day. While the texts can be dense—some took me multiple reads—the forewords and introductions make it approachable with helpful context. I happened to read this collection after returning from a trip to India, and its evocative depictions transported me back. Whether you’re drawn to poetry, mythology, or philosophical musings, this anthology offers an exploration of India’s diverse and rich literary heritage.
Readers begin with the “Therigatha”, Buddhist women’s poems in Pali about transcending worldly attachments. Next is “Arjuna and the Hunter,” a Sanskrit tale from the “Mahabharata” featuring Arjuna’s battle with Shiva in disguise; “The Life of Harishchandra,” a poem in Kannada about a king devoted to the truth and his journey to get there; and “The Story of Manu” is a Telugu poem that illustrates a beautiful journey through nature of a Brahman man on his way to be a king. The anthology then transitions to Punjabi for “Poems from the Guru Granth Sahib,” celebrating universal truths within all, and later, “Selections from Sufi Lyrics” that explore unity and love as both delight and torment. Braj Bhasha’s “Sur’s Ocean” highlights Krishna’s life, while a translation of “The Epic of Ram,” tells the beloved tale of Ram and Sita. The anthology’s sole narrative, “The History of Akbar,” originally in Persian, recounts Akbar’s early life and achievements.
My personal favorite was the last collection: Mir Taqi Mir’s “Selected Ghazals and Other Poems.” Mir reflects on love—its omnipresence, beauty, and heartbreak—making the heart softer and more connected to the divine.
What makes this anthology particularly compelling is how it weaves together the spiritual, the philosophical, and the deeply personal. Each tale is a window into a specific microcosm of India’s communities and history, yet the themes resonate universally and into the modern day. While the texts can be dense—some took me multiple reads—the forewords and introductions make it approachable with helpful context. I happened to read this collection after returning from a trip to India, and its evocative depictions transported me back. Whether you’re drawn to poetry, mythology, or philosophical musings, this anthology offers an exploration of India’s diverse and rich literary heritage.
December 30, 2024
My forehead worn down by continual prostration— having fulfilled my duty as a servant, I depart. Stony idol of beauty, I adored you to the utmost, established you as the true God in everyone’s regard, and now I depart. It was the way the flowers die and fall from the branch where they were born. I came into this garden called the world, and now I depart. Thank God, I didn’t have to face the sorrow of my friends’ deaths. It was I who etched my grief upon them, and now I depart. – Selections from Selected Ghazals and other Poems by Mir Taqi Mir, Translated from Urdu by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi
The Murty Classical Library of India’s Ten Indian Classics offers a tour of South Asia’s rich literary traditions, spanning from the sixth century BCE to the eighteenth century. From romantic ghazals (a form of amatory ode, originating in Arabic poetry) to sacred verses, and from heroic epics to Buddhist reflections, this anthology encapsulates the vibrancy and diversity of the subcontinent’s storytelling heritage. It opens a window onto a world where poetry, history, philosophy, and spirituality converge. Anchored by the expert translations of leading scholars, the anthology invites readers to navigate its multilingual terrain, featuring works in Sanskrit, Pali, Persian, Panjabi, Urdu, Telugu, and more. Complemented by Indian poet and art critic Ranjit Hoskote’s illuminating foreword, this collection not only celebrates the literary past but also its resonance in contemporary art, music, and culture. Each classic includes a concise summary that provides readers with the context and significance of the work, along with a brief discussion of the challenges involved in translating that particular piece.
The anthology distinguishes itself through its deliberate curation of texts that transcend the bounds of time and geography. The Therīgāthā, for instance, captures the voices of early Buddhist women who renounced worldly ties, offering a rare glimpse into their spiritual journeys. Equally striking are selections like Bharavi’s Kirātārjunīya, a Sanskrit epic chronicling Arjuna’s encounter with Shiva, and Raghavanka’s The Life of Harishchandra, a Kannada masterpiece grappling with themes of truth, caste, and duty. These works, alongside Mir Taqi Mir’s lamentations on love and mortality and Baba Bullhe Shah’s songs of divine surrender, demonstrate the anthology’s dual mission: to honour the unique historical and cultural significance of these texts while making them accessible to modern readers.
What elevates Ten Indian Classics is its sensitivity to the complex act of translation itself. As Hoskote observes, translation in a postcolonial context involves navigating asymmetries of power and interpretation. The anthology not only bridges linguistic divides but also illuminates the ideological tensions that have shaped the reception of South Asia’s classics. Whether capturing the sensuousness of Krishna’s escapades in Sūrsāgar or the philosophical introspection of The Story of Manu, the translators strive to render each text’s emotional and intellectual depth into English, while preserving its cultural essence. This meticulous labour underscores the universal themes embedded in these works—hope and despair, faith and doubt, love and loss—that resonate across centuries and cultures.
Each selection is introduced with a historical and cultural preface, ensuring that readers grasp its significance within and beyond the subcontinent. From the luminous poetry of the past to its modern-day echoes, particularly in television and film, the anthology stands as a testament to the dynamic interplay of tradition and innovation. Far from being relics of a distant past, these texts engage deeply with the human condition, inviting readers to see themselves mirrored in their timeless narratives. Whether for the uninitiated or the connoisseur, this collection serves as both a literary treasure and a profound reflection on what it means to be human.
This book was provided by Harvard University Press for review.
The Murty Classical Library of India’s Ten Indian Classics offers a tour of South Asia’s rich literary traditions, spanning from the sixth century BCE to the eighteenth century. From romantic ghazals (a form of amatory ode, originating in Arabic poetry) to sacred verses, and from heroic epics to Buddhist reflections, this anthology encapsulates the vibrancy and diversity of the subcontinent’s storytelling heritage. It opens a window onto a world where poetry, history, philosophy, and spirituality converge. Anchored by the expert translations of leading scholars, the anthology invites readers to navigate its multilingual terrain, featuring works in Sanskrit, Pali, Persian, Panjabi, Urdu, Telugu, and more. Complemented by Indian poet and art critic Ranjit Hoskote’s illuminating foreword, this collection not only celebrates the literary past but also its resonance in contemporary art, music, and culture. Each classic includes a concise summary that provides readers with the context and significance of the work, along with a brief discussion of the challenges involved in translating that particular piece.
The anthology distinguishes itself through its deliberate curation of texts that transcend the bounds of time and geography. The Therīgāthā, for instance, captures the voices of early Buddhist women who renounced worldly ties, offering a rare glimpse into their spiritual journeys. Equally striking are selections like Bharavi’s Kirātārjunīya, a Sanskrit epic chronicling Arjuna’s encounter with Shiva, and Raghavanka’s The Life of Harishchandra, a Kannada masterpiece grappling with themes of truth, caste, and duty. These works, alongside Mir Taqi Mir’s lamentations on love and mortality and Baba Bullhe Shah’s songs of divine surrender, demonstrate the anthology’s dual mission: to honour the unique historical and cultural significance of these texts while making them accessible to modern readers.
What elevates Ten Indian Classics is its sensitivity to the complex act of translation itself. As Hoskote observes, translation in a postcolonial context involves navigating asymmetries of power and interpretation. The anthology not only bridges linguistic divides but also illuminates the ideological tensions that have shaped the reception of South Asia’s classics. Whether capturing the sensuousness of Krishna’s escapades in Sūrsāgar or the philosophical introspection of The Story of Manu, the translators strive to render each text’s emotional and intellectual depth into English, while preserving its cultural essence. This meticulous labour underscores the universal themes embedded in these works—hope and despair, faith and doubt, love and loss—that resonate across centuries and cultures.
Each selection is introduced with a historical and cultural preface, ensuring that readers grasp its significance within and beyond the subcontinent. From the luminous poetry of the past to its modern-day echoes, particularly in television and film, the anthology stands as a testament to the dynamic interplay of tradition and innovation. Far from being relics of a distant past, these texts engage deeply with the human condition, inviting readers to see themselves mirrored in their timeless narratives. Whether for the uninitiated or the connoisseur, this collection serves as both a literary treasure and a profound reflection on what it means to be human.
This book was provided by Harvard University Press for review.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews