How to Love in Sanskrit - by Suhas Mahesh & Anusha Rao (Hardcover)

About the Book

Witty surprising and joyous ... A book to pick up a book to gift. - ARUNDHATHI SUBRAMANIAM

Beautiful ... A book that will delight the reader. - BIBEK DEBROY

Sanskrit has too often been regarded as the sacred language of the gods yet it is love that has been the overwhelming obsession of Sanskrit...

Book Synopsis

Sanskrit has too often been regarded as the sacred language of the gods, yet it is love that has been the overwhelming obsession of Sanskrit writers for over 3,000 years. How to Love in Sanskrit is an invitation to Sanskrit love poetry, bringing together verses and short prose pieces by celebrated writers like Kalidasa and Banabhatta, Buddhist and Jain monks, scholars, emperors, and even some modern-day poets. How do you brew a love potion? Turn someone crimson with a compliment? How do you make love? How do you quarrel and make up?

Review Quotes

Witty, surprising and joyous, this book banishes notions of solemnity and turgid scholarship that one might nurse about translations from the Sanskrit. Several translations here wear their learning lightly, as good poems must, reminding us that centuries are separated "by historians, not poets". A book to pick up, a book to gift.' - Arundhathi Subramaniam-'This is a beautiful book, with wonderful contemporary translations of love poetry in Sanskrit (with some in Prakrit). The translations will charm and entice readers to read the originals. A difficult book to write, but since the two editors wear their scholarship lightly, they make it seem easy. A book that will delight the reader.' - Bibek Debroy