Half mythical, heroic and sagacious, the emperor Vikramaditya is widely regarded as India's greatest monarch. This collection of stories tells of the ruler's fabled encounter with a vetala, a genie who inhabits the body of a corpse. The emperor begs the spirit for his help against a mighty necromancer and is told in return twenty-four tales, each of which presents a situation he might face as a king and culminates in a riddle that he must solve. With each answer, Vikramaditya displays his deep wisdom, proving himself to be the ideal monarch and winning, in the twenty-fifth tale, the guidance he needs from the vetala to destroy his powerful enemy. Written down in medieval times but inspired by an oral tradition stretching back centuries, these wise and witty tales rank amongst the great masterpieces of Sanskrit literature.

In Narratives of Kingship in Eurasian Empires, 1300-1800 Richard van Leeuwen analyses representations and constructions of the idea of kingship in fictional texts of various genres, especially belonging to the intermediate layer between popular and official literature. The analysis shows how ideologies of power are embedded in the literary and cultural imagination of societies, their cultural values and conceptualizations of authority. By referring to examples from various empires (Chinese, Indian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, European) the parallels between literary traditions are laid bare, revealing remarkable common concerns. The process of interaction and transmission are highlighted to illustrate how literature served as a repository for ideological and cultural values transforming power into authority in various imperial environments.

Prince, Pen, and Sword offers a synoptic interpretation of rulers and elites in Eurasia from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. Four core chapters zoom in on the tensions and connections at court, on the nexus between rulers and religious authority, on the status, function, and self-perceptions of military and administrative elites respectively. Two additional concise chapters provide a focused analysis of the construction of specific dynasties (the Golden Horde and the Habsburgs) and narratives of kingship found in fiction throughout Eurasia. The contributors and editors, authorities in their fields, systematically bring together specialised literature on numerous Eurasian kingdoms and empires. This book is a careful and thought-provoking experiment in the global, comparative and connected history of rulers and elites.

‘If you know the answer and do not respond, your head will shatter into pieces!’ In a land of glorious kings, bloodthirsty demons and talking spirits, was born the lore of Vikram and the Vetal. After a series of mysterious events, King Vikramaditya carries the vetal, a witty ghost, on a long journey through death's playground. The vetal narrates the most fascinating tales and asks the most puzzling riddles, leaving Vikram completely stumped. Deepa Agarwal's beautiful translation brings age-old wisdom alive through the vetal's wondrous stories that are bound to confound and captivate readers even today.

The Routledge Companion to Global Literary Adaptation in the Twenty-First Century offers new perspectives on contemporary literary adaptation as a dynamically global field. Featuring contributions from an international team of established and emerging scholars, this volume considers literary adaptation to be a complex global network of influences, appropriations, and audiences across a diversity of media. It offers site-specific case studies that situate literary adaptation within global market forces while challenging the homogenizing effects of globalization on local literatures and adaptation practices. The collection also provides a multi-disciplinary and transnational discussion around a wide array of topics in literary adaptation in a global context, such as soft power, decolonization, global justice, the posthuman, eco criticism, and forms of activism. This Companion provides scholars, researchers, and students with a survey of key methodologies, current debates, and ideologies emerging from a new and exciting phase in literary adaptation.

Classic tales of courage and compassion The fabled monarch Vikramaditya is considered a model of kingly virtues, and his reign a golden age. These famous stories narrated by the thirty-two statuettes of nymphs supporting the magic throne of Vikramaditya extol his courage, compassion and extraordinary magnanimity. They are set in a framework recounting the myths of his birth, accession, adventures and death in battle, after which the throne remained concealed till its discovery in a later age. A fascinating mix of marvellous happenings, proverbial wisdom and sage precepts, these popular tales are designed to entertain as well as instruct. Many have passed into folk literature. The original author of the Simhasana Dvatrimsika is unknown. The present text is dated to the thirteenth century AD. It exists in four main recensions, from which extracts have been compiled together for the first time, in this lively and faithful translation of this celebrated classic by a renowned Sanskritist

**Shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year** The Penguin Classics Book is a reader's companion to the largest library of classic literature in the world. Spanning 4,000 years from the legends of Ancient Mesopotamia to the poetry of the First World War, with Greek tragedies, Icelandic sagas, Japanese epics and much more in between, it encompasses 500 authors and 1,200 books, bringing these to life with lively descriptions, literary connections and beautiful cover designs.