Aditya Behl on the Clay Sanskrit Library

[Patrick Olivelle]

Yes, the CLS ceased to operate as of the end of June -- and it has 
little to do with poor sales. The Clay's pulled the rug under the 
whole enterprise. It has been frustrating to all connected with the 
project, and we will hear soon from Shelly Pollock, who was the last 
general editor.

Patrick


>I would like to call the attention of list members to a recent 
>review article by Aditya Behl which discusses this recent enterprise 
>which aims to present much of classical Sanskrit literature in a 
>format similar to Harvard's Loeb classical library of Greek and 
>Latin classics.  I refer to the Times Literary Supplement issue June 
>19 2009, no. 5542.  This is the print version, a very prominent 
>front page review.  I do not know whether it is available online.
>
>However, I can say that Behl has done a nice job of introducing the 
>Clay Sanskrit Library to a general audience.  Unfortunately, this 
>article also gives the disturbing news that this series of classical 
>Sanskrit texts presented attractively and accessibly in a bilingual 
>format, with the Sanskrit text [in simplified sandhi-analyzed form] 
>facing an English translation on opposite page, just as in the 
>Harvard Loeb series, is about to be discontinued because of poor 
>sales.
>We should all encourage our students to buy Clay editions of these 
>Sanskrit texts.  And we all should buy them as well, as much as we 
>can.  This is a very valuable series which we should all support, in 
>spite of its very minor  flaws.
>George Thompson