The short lyric poem appears with great frequency in Sanskrit
collections and displays a wide range of themes. Bhartri-hari is the
most famous composer. Ámaru and Bílhana also offer excellent examples.
This anthology of the Love Lyrics of three Indian poets conjures up an
atmosphere of love both sensual and social, ever in tension with love's
rejection or repression. The flavor of all these poems- Ámaru's
seventh-century C.E. "Hundred Poems," Bhartri-hari's anthology "Love,
Politics, Disenchantment," from the fourth century, and Bílhana's
eleventh-century "Fifty Stanzas of a Thief"--is the universalized
aesthetic experience of love.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series,
please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.org