This volume on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries starts with Vidyakara`s retrospect over anonymous poets (named ones having mostly found their places in earlier volumes). After some smaller anthologies a few novels and Mankhaka`s mythological epic we come to a historical epic. History is the most substantial source of matter for literature in the volume. That might seem to contrast with Vol. Vi, but as literature its aim is always are, not facts which narrows the gap.

Volume III in this series presents some of the most celebrated classical writers of India, including Sudraka, Visnusarman, Kalidasa, Pravarasena, Amaruka, Bharavi, Subandhu and Visakhadatta. A new analysis and appreciation of their poetry, drama and fiction is offered, in the light of Indian literary criticism, especially of the important critical works only recently recovered from scattered manuscripts. During the disastrous later middle ages (about the thirteenth century and later), most of the earlier literature was destroyed by invading fanatics and plunderers. In order to offer a more complete picture of the early medieval literature, an effort has been made here to resurrect, from the critics and elsewhere, such once famous writers as Sarvasena, Candragomin, Matrgupta, Mentha and Brahmayasas, together with what is known of the mysterious `Vikramaditya`. To provide some social background to such aspects of criticism as trends in the characterisation of heroes, the history of the period (+200 to +600) is briefly touched on at the beginning of some of the chapters. The sculpture photographed on the dust jacket, courtesy of the National Museum, New Delhi, is believed to represent a scene from the Toy Cart, though it seems more likely to be from some earlier play.

It is multi-volume series work. The main pupose of this work is literary criticism, evaluating a great tradition of literature and to present comprehensive study of sanskrit literature. So far 6 volumes have been published. Each volume presents literature itself in successive periods of its development. This second volume in the series on Kavya Literature begins the description of the literature itself. The most original feature of the present study, as compared with other books in English on Indian literature, is that the literature is presented and discussed from the point of view of the Indian tradition itself. The author has first presented the literature from within the Indian tradition, then he has given discussions on the kavyas presented, from the old Indian critics, finally crooss-references are inserted in square brackets to the relevant paragraphs of Volume I. The discussions of the old critics become more frequent and intensive in the later chapters of this volume (especially Chapter XVI), reflecting their tastes and the gradual establishment of classical standards.Among the classics discussed in this volume are the Ramayana, the great novel Brhatkatha of Gunadhya, the epics of Asvaghosa, the lyric anthology of Satavahana and the plays of Bhasa.

This volume is the first attempt to offer a panoramic historical overview of South Asian classical poetry, especially in Sanskrit. Many of the essays in this volume are the first serious studies of the great masterpieces of South Asian literature. Moreover, the book as a whole captures the millennium-long developmental logic of kavya literature by identifying a series of critical moments of breakthrough and innovation-that is, moments when the basic rules of composition and the aesthetic and poetic goals underwent dramatic change, allowing the tradition to reinvent itself. Individual sections thus focus on the beginnings of kavya literature and Kalidasa's creation of what came to be its classical form; the new poetic model that emerged from the intense competition and conversation of Bharavi and Magha in the middle of the first millennium; the extended revolutionary period in Kanauj, where Bana and his successors reconceived the meaning and practice of Sanskrit poetry; and the no less transformative period at the beginning of the second millennium, when poets of genius such as Sriharsa were active in the context of India's nascent vernacularization. The scope of the volume extends beyond Sanskrit to early modern Hindi, and beyond the subcontinent and the Himalayas to Java and Tibet, where kavya found a new home and continued to evolve. A general introduction proposes a theoretical framework for the study of this immense literary tradition in terms of its continuous self-reinvention.

6 Vol. Set, Book pub dates 1988-1994