"Rama's Last Act" by Bhava*bhuti is counted among the greatest Sanskrit dramas. The work at once dramatizes the "Ramayana"-it is one of the earliest theatrical adaptations of Valmiki's epic masterpiece-and revises its most intractable episode, the hero's rejection of his beloved wife. Human agency in the face of destiny, the power of love, and the capacity of art to make sense of such mysteries are the themes explored in this singular literary achievement of the Indian stage.
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

About the Author
Sheldon I. Pollock is the William B. Ransford Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies and Chairman of the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University. He is the author of The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India and editor of Cosmopolitanism and Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia.

Reviews
"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 *
"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 *
"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 9780814767337
Author Sheldon I. Pollock
Format Hardback
Page Count 451
Imprint New York University Press
Publisher New York University Press
Weight(grams) 318g