John Dargavel Smith (born August 26, 1946) is a former professor of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. His studies have primarily focused on topics in the language/literature/culture of

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

. Much of this time was devoted to a major project on the hero-deity

Pabuji Pabuji is a folk-deity of Rajasthan in India who is also worshiped in parts of Gujarat and the Indus plain. The Narrative of Pabuji The narrative of Pabuji is sung by the Bhopa poet-singers of Nayak community is based according to the traditi ...

: this was published in 1991 as ''The epic of Pabuji'' (

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

). He earned a BA degree in Oriental Studies (Sanskrit and

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

) 1968 and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in 1974. He was appointed Lecturer in Sanskrit at the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

1975; University Lecturer in Sanskrit at Cambridge 1984, and became promoted Reader in Sanskrit, October 2001. He retired in September 2007. Smith is interested in

Hindu mythology Hindu mythology is the body of myths and literature attributed to, and espoused by, the adherents of the Hindu religion, found in Hindu texts such as the Vedic literature, epics like ''Mahabharata'' and ''Ramayana'', the Puranas, and reg ...

and epic narrative. In 2009 he published an abridged translation of the

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...

with

Penguin Classics Penguin Classics is an imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the Western ...

.John D. Smith, trans., Mahābhārata (London: Penguin, 2009). Professor Smith is also interested in the application of computers to

textual study Textual scholarship (or textual studies) is an umbrella term for disciplines that deal with describing, transcribing, editing or annotating texts and physical documents. Overview Textual research is mainly historically oriented. Textual scholars s ...

Selected publications

* ''The Vīsaḷadevarāsa: a restoration of the text''. Cambridge: C.U.P., 1976 * ''The epic of Pābūjī: a study, transcription and translation''. Cambridge: C.U.P., 1991 ** ''The epic of Pabuji'' opular second edition New Delhi: Katha, 2005. * '' The Mahābhārata: an abridged translation''. Penguin Books, 2009.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, John D. Living people Academics of the University of Cambridge British Indologists 1946 births Place of birth missing (living people) Writers about Kali (demon) Translators of the Bhagavad Gita