Ramayana, Book Four, Kishkindha by Valmiki.

• Author: Gerow, Edwin

Ramayana, Book Four, Kishkindha by VALMIKI (on the dust jacket); [Ramayana, Kiskindha, Valmiki (on the title page)]. Translated by ROSALIND LEFEBER. Pp. 415.

Rakshasa's Ring, by Vishakha-datta [Raksasa's Ring, Visakhadatta]. Translated by MICHAEL COULSON. Pp. 385.

The Emperor of the Sorcerers, volume two, by Budhas-vamin [Budhasvamin]. Translated by SIR JAMES MALLINSON. Pp. 467.

Maha-bharata, Book Nine, Shalya, volume one [Maha-bharata, Salya]. Translated by JUSTIN MEILAND. Pp.371.

[all volumes:] Clay Sanskrit Library; general editor, RICHARD GOMBRICH. New York: New York UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2005.

It is unnecessary to review two of these four volumes, being reprints of existing translations (Lefeber, Coulson). Mallinson deserves some notice, but why not wait for volume one? (Despite the title, what is translated is Lacote's edition of the Brhatkathaslokasamgraha.) The fourth is part of a project that envisages retranslating the entire Mahabharata, thus duplicating the longstanding University of Chicago project. Some brief remarks might, however, be offered on the series itself, if these four are indicative of its aims and execution. For a more detailed perspective, the reader may be referred to the long review of the series published in the Times Higher Education Supplement by John D. Smith (11 Nov 2005).

The Clay Sanskrit Library (eventually to number "one-hundred volumes") aims "to introduce Classical Sanskrit Literature to a wide international readership" (Clay Website). The model is that of the Loeb Classical Library, as is patent from the format (facing text and translation), the uniform size and color, and superb presentation of the volumes. But the comparison is illusory, and serves only to raise questions.

For whom are these volumes intended? The intelligent lay reader--as was the case for the Loeb volumes, given the place of the Classics in British and even American education at the time? (Virginia Woolf 's encomium of the Loeb project [TLS, 1917] is, in this respect, exemplary.) But does such a readership exist for Sanskrit--apart from perhaps certain strata of the traditional Indian elite? If so, presenting the text in Roman transcription is an obstacle, rather than an aid.--For Western students of Sanskrit? As cribs, the volumes are rendered much less useful by the abandonment of whatever critical apparatus, including all annotation, may have graced the original publication. (The case of Lefeber's Ramayana is egregious in this...