Author: Tiruvallur
Translator(s)/ Editors(s): K R Srinivasa Iyengar
Publisher: M P Birla Foundation
Year: 1988
Language: English
Pages: 146
ISBN/UPC (if available): N/A
Description
This Classics of the East attempts to present, in readable and dependable English versions, a library of time-tested Asian literary works in elegantly produced editions. As far as possible, each text will be published unexpurgated, each text critical insights by established scholars to enable the serious reader to appreciate its complex richness.
The project is inspired by the beliefs that the best education consists in the spread of noble, liberal ideals which are enshrined in the literary philosophical and religious expressions of the humanist spirit. The list of classics has been complied after consultation with India and Asian scholars and creative writers. For convenience, the Editors have restricted their choice of classics to cultural contribution whose extensiveness requires separate research and dissemination.
As a rule, the classics have been selected on the basis of criteria that transcend national and political limitations, and a conscious attempt has been made to see the multiplicity of Asian literature as the product of an interplay of mutually and collectively beneficial influences. For historical and other reasons, the major literature of the East have remained for the most part neglected. By making a library of well-edited Asian works available, Classics of the East hopes to bring the cultural wealth of more than half the globe into the hospitable privacy of every cultured English knowing home wishing to enlarge its humanist horizons.
COMMENTS
“The genuine poetry, the greast in Plan, conception and force of execution ever written in this kind, of the Tamil saint, Tiruvalluvar.”
- Sri Aurobindo
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR:
K.R.SRINIVASA IYENGAR took his M.A and D. Ltt. From the University of Madras, Taught at Valvettiturai, Belgaum and Bagalkot before moving to Andhra University in 1947 as Professor of English, and served as Vice-Chancellor From 1966 to 1968. He was elected Vice-President of Sahitya Akademi in 1969, and retired as Acting President in 1978. Since 1971, he served for a term as a Member of the Press Council of India. He was elected Honorary Member of the Modern Language Association of America in 1984, and Fellow of Sahitya Akademi in 1985. He is Adhishthata of the Delhi Branch of Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
Contents
Book one
VIRTUE
Introduction
Domestic Virtue
Ascetic Mores
Book Two
WEALTH
Royalty
Ministers of state
The State
Appendix
Book Three
LOVE
Secret Love
Wedded Love
Postscript