The Murty Classical Library of India began publishing classics of Indian literature in January 2015. The books, which are in dual-language format with the original language and English facing, are published by

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

. The Columbia University scholar,

Sheldon Pollock Sheldon I. Pollock (born 1948) is an American scholar of Sanskrit, the intellectual and literary history of India, and comparative intellectual history. He is the Arvind Raghunathan Professor of South Asian Studies at Columbia University. He was ...

, is the library's general editor. Pollock previously edited the Clay Sanskrit Library. The library was established through a $5.2 million gift from

Rohan Murty Rohan Narayana Murty is a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, founder of the Murty Classical Library of India and founder and chief technical officer of the digital transformation company Soroco, which specialises in automation us ...

, the son of

Infosys Infosys Limited is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational information technology company that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services. The company was founded in Pune and is headquartered in Ba ...

co-founder

N. R. Narayana Murthy Nāgavārā Rāmarāo Nārāyana Mūrthy (born 21 August 1946) is an Indian billionaire businessman. He is the founder of Infosys, and has been the chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief mentor of the company before ret ...

and social worker and author Sudha Murty. The series will include translations from Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, other Indian languages and Persian. It will include fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and religious texts from all Indian traditions including Buddhism and Islam. The projected 500 volumes, to be published over a century, have a corpus of thousands of volumes of classic Indian literature to draw on.

Inception

previously edited the Clay Sanskrit Library, whose funding had ended in 2008, and Pollock was searching for a new sponsor to continue the work in a wider format. Rohan Murty, as a PhD student in Computer Science at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, was taking courses in ancient Indian literature and philosophy from the Sanskrit Department and developed a deep interest in ancient Indian texts. The two were brought together by

Gurcharan Das Gurcharan Das (born 3 October 1943) is an Indian author, who wrote a trilogy based on the classical Indian goals of the ideal life. ''India Unbound'' was the first volume (2002), on artha, 'material well-being', which narrated the story of I ...

, leading to the establishment of the Murty Classical Library under the auspices of the Harvard University Press.

Volumes

January 2015 *'' Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women'', translated by

Charles Hallisey Charles Hallisey is the Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer on Buddhist Literatures at Harvard Divinity School and an authority on Sinhala literature and Theravada Buddhism. Biography Hallisey obtained his AB from Colgate University, M.Div. from Harvard ...

, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2015), hardcover, 336 pages, . *''The Story of Manu'', by

Allasani Peddana Allasani Peddana (15th and 16th centuries CE) was a famous Telugu poet and was ranked as the foremost of the '' Ashtadiggajalu'', the title for the group of eight poets in the court of King Krishnadevaraya, a ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire. ...

, translated by Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2015), hardcover, 656 pages, * ''Sur's Ocean: Poems from the Early Tradition'', Surdas, edited by Kenneth E. Bryant, translated by John Stratton Hawley, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2015), hardcover, 1072 pages *''Sufi Lyrics'', Bullhe Shah, edited and translated by Christopher Shackle, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2015), hardcover, 496 pages, *''The History of Akbar, Volume 1'' (the '' Akbarnama''), by

Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, also known as Abul sharma, Abu'l Fadl and Abu'l-Fadl 'Allami (14 January 1551 – 22 August 1602), was the grand vizier of the Mughal emperor Akbar, from his appointment in 1579 until his death in 1602. He was the au ...

, edited and translated by

Wheeler Thackston Wheeler McIntosh Thackston (born 1944) is an American Orientalist. He has edited and translated numerous Chaghatai, Arabic, and Persian literary and historical works. Life Thackston is a graduate of Princeton's Oriental Studies department, wh ...

, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2015), hardcover, 656 pages, January 2016 *''The History of Akbar, Volume 2'' (the '' Akbarnama''), by

, edited and translated by

, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2016), hardcover, 624 pages, *''The Epic of Ram, Volume 1'', (the ''

Ramcharitmanas ''Ramcharitmanas'' ( deva, श्रीरामचरितमानस, Rāmacaritamānasa), is an epic poem in the Awadhi language, based on the ''Ramayana'', and composed by the 16th-century Indian bhakti poet Tulsidas (c. 1532–1623). This ...

'') by

Tulsidas Tulsidas (; born Rambola Dubey; also known as Goswami Tulsidas; c.1511pp. 23–34.–1623) was a Ramanandi Vaishnava Hindu saint and poet, renowned for his devotion to the deity Rama. He wrote several popular works in Sanskrit and Awadhi, but ...

, translated by

Philip Lutgendorf Philip Lutgendorf is an American Indologist. He is Professor of Hindu and Modern Indian Studies at the University of Iowa. His areas of work and interest include the epic poem ''Ramcharitmanas'', the life and works of Hindu poet Tulsidas, the wors ...

, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2016), hardcover, 432 pages, *''The Epic of Ram, Volume 2'', (the ''

'') by

, translated by Philip Lutgendorf, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2016), hardcover, 560 pages, *''Arjuna and the Hunter'', (the ''

Kirātārjunīya ''Kirātārjunīya'' ( sa, किरातार्जुनीय, ''Of Arjuna and the Kirāta'') is an epic poem by Bhāravi, considered to be the most powerful poem in Sanskrit. Believed to have been composed in the 6th century or earlier, it ...

'') by Bharavi, edited and translated by

Indira Viswanathan Peterson __NOTOC__ Indira may refer to: People * Indira (name) Films and books * ''Indira'', an 1873 novella by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee * ''Indira'' (film), directed by Suhasini Manirathnam * ''Indira'' (1989 film), a Hindi film (Hema malini as Indir ...

, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2016), hardcover, 480 pages,

Formats

Paperback versions of the books are available throughout the Indian subcontinent for the equivalent of USD 3 to USD 5, depending on the volume's size. Electronic editions of the works are planned for the future.

Criticism on the choice of General Editor

In March 2016, a petition initiated by Indian academicians demanded that

be removed from the editorship of the Murty Classical Library of India. The petition cites Rajiv Malhotra's book ''

The Battle for Sanskrit ''The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberating, Dead or Alive?'' is a 2016 book written by Rajiv Malhotra which criticizes the academic discipline of Indology, as practiced by Western scholars and particularl ...

'', in which Pollock is a major topic. Malhotra criticizes Pollock for his methodologies, which are not being led by a traditional Dharmic point of view, and uses

political philology Political philology is "an active mode of understanding" texts. It does not simply take (religious) texts at face-value as religious texts without any connection to a social and political context, but situates them in a historical context, and is ...

which unearths "social abuses in the texts (against dalits, women, Muslims) as the predominant quality of those texts". According to Malhotra, Pollock takes an activist stance, calling "his peers to expunge the Sanskrit tradition of its inbuilt oppressiveness" which he describes as prescriptivism. Malhotra rejects these approaches, regarding them as a "bias" which threaten traditional approaches of Sanskrit texts. He adds, it is unfortunate that most Hindus are "largely unaware of what he has written." In a response,

stated that Sheldon Pollock will continue his position, saying that the library will commission the "best possible scholar for that particular language. We will not judge on nationality, gender, race, creed or colour." He further questioned the intentions of the petitioners, noting that none of the petitioners had tried to contact him for the past six years.Sudha Pillai
''It is always nice to disagree, but don't be disagreeable''
Bangalore Mirror, 3 March 2016.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.murtylibrary.com/ Indian literature Dual-language series of texts Translations into English Murthy family