"Bhishma," the sixth book of the eighteen-book epic The Maha*bharata, narrates the first ten days of the great war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. This first volume covers four days from the beginning of the great battle and includes the famous "Bhagavad*gita ("The Song of the Lord"), presented here within its original epic context. In this "bible" of Indian civilization the charioteer Krishna empowers his disciple Arjuna to resolve his personal dilemma: whether to follow his righteous duty as a warrior and slay his opponent relatives in the just battle, or to abstain from fighting and renounce the warrior code to which he is born.

Narrates the first ten days of the great war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas
Reviews
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 Maha*bharat itself Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartri*hari, 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 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 *
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 *
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 *
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 *
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 *



Book Information
ISBN 9780814716960
Author Alex Cherniak
Format Hardback
Page Count 450
Imprint New York University Press
Publisher New York University Press
Weight(grams) 431g