Illuminating Worlds : An Anthology of Classical Indian Literature

Illuminating Worlds explores the foundations of the world’s longest continuous multilingual literary tradition. It provides fresh, readable translations of classical Indian literature from the earliest Vedic hymns to the devotional Tamil bhakti poetry of the eight century CE. This wide-ranging anthology includes excerpts from seminal works of Indian mythology, philosophy, poetry and narrative literature. They are organized both chronologically and thematically to provide a broad perspective of Indian literary history while highlighting the cross-fertilizing connections between various literary traditions. Each selection is accompanied by a lucid introductory essay to frame and contextualize the excerpts within larger developments in Indian cultural history.

Spanning time, texts and languages, this anthology-the first of its kind-provides a comprehensive survey of various genres, styles and forms of Indian literature. The reader will find here a polished and accessible collection of some of India’s most important literary contributions.