The stylistic difficulties of Sanskrit court verse and its boldness in dealing with love have hitherto prevented the translation of any of the great Sanskrit anthologies. Daniel Ingalls presents a vivid and unpedantic rendering of the 1739 verses found in the recently discovered anthology of Vidyākara. Separate essays are provided on the style and conventions of the poetry in each of the 50 sections of the collection, while the introduction gives the first general criticism by a Western scholar of the techniques and aims of Classical Sanskrit poetry. The notes offer a wealth of information on Sanskrit style and literature and on Indian antiquities.

For nearly a thousand years the brilliant analysis of aesthetic experience set forth in the Locana of Abhinavagupta, India's founding literary critic, has dominated traditional Indian theory on poetics and aesthetics. The Locana, presented here in English translation for the first time, is a commentary on the ninth-century Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana, which is itself the pivotal work in the history of Indian poetics.

The Dhvanyaloka revolutionized Sanskrit literary theory by proposing that the main goal of good poetry is the evocation of a mood or "flavor" (rasa) and that this process can be explained only by recognizing a semantic power beyond denotation and metaphor, namely, the power of suggestion. On the basis of this analysis the Locana develops a theory of the psychology of aesthetic response.

This edition is the first to make the two most influential works of traditional Sanskrit literary and aesthetic theory fully accessible to readers who want to know more about Sanskrit literature. The editorial annotations furnish the most complete exposition available of the history and content of these works. In addition, the verses presented as examples by both authors (offered here in verse translation) form an anthology of some of the finest Sanskrit and Prakrit poetry.

In this rich collection of Sanskrit verse, the late Daniel Ingalls provides English readers with a wide variety of poetry from the vast anthology of an eleventh-century Buddhist scholar.

Although the style of poetry presented here originated in royal courts, Ingalls shows how it was adapted to all aspects of life, and came to address issues as diverse as love, sex, heroes, nature, and peace. More than thirty years after its original publication, Sanskrit Poetry continues to be the main resource for all interested in this multifaceted and elegant tradition.