[INDOLOGY] New Publication: Classical Sanskrit Tragedy

[Bihani Sarkar]

Apologies for this additional message.

My publisher has just now sent me a flyer and order form with a 35%
discount code (attached). This brings the price of the book down to 55.25
Great British Pounds.
I apologize for the expense, but unfortunately I was not in control of the
price. Bloomsbury-IB Tauris were considerate enough, though, to listen to
my plea to have a more affordable version of the book for the Indian
market, which is where I would like *Classical Sanskrit Tragedy* to be most
widely available: I have been told by them that a specially priced Indian
paperback will be coming out later.

If you order online at www.bloomsbury.com please enter the code *GLR BN3*
on the first page at the checkout for the 35% discount to apply.
Thank you.
Bihani

On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 12:38 PM Bihani Sarkar <bihanisarkar at googlemail.com>
wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I am pleased to announce the publication of my next book *Classical
> Sanskrit Tragedy: The Concept of Suffering and Pathos in Medieval India*
> (Bloomsbury-IB Tauris):
> https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/classical-sanskrit-tragedy-9781788311113/
>
> I express my heartfelt gratitude to the anonymous peer-reviewer for
> her/his pertinent and knowledgeable suggestions in improving the book. I am
> also grateful to Professor Sheldon Pollock and Dr. Csaba Dezso for kindly
> endorsing the book. Gratitude is expressed in the book's Acknowledgement to
> many invaluable *sahṛdaya*s and* hitaiṣī*s, who poured assistance like
> the *megha* in the *Meghadūta* pours nourishing rain.
>
> Details regarding content as follows:
>
> *Book description*
>
> It is often assumed that classical Sanskrit poetry and drama (*kāvya*)
> lack a concern with the tragic. However, as made clear in this book, this
> is far from the case. This re-evaluation of 'tragedy' in classical Sanskrit
> literature draws on a wide range of Sanskrit dramas, poems and treatises –
> many passages among which are translated for the first time into English –
> to provide a fuller history and re-conceptualization of the tragic in
> Indian literature from the second to the fourth centuries.
>
>
>
> Looking at Kālidāsa, the most celebrated writer of Sanskrit poetry and
> drama (*kāvya*), this book argues that constructions of absence and grief
> are central to Kālidāsa’s compositions and that these ‘tragic middles’ are
> much more sophisticated than previously understood. For Kālidāsa, tragic
> middles are modes of thinking, in which he confronts theological and
> philosophical issues. Through a close literary analysis of the tragic
> middle in five of his works, the *Abhijñānaśakuntalā*, the *Raghuvaṃśa,*
> the *Kumārasambhava,* the *Vikramorvaśīya* and the *Meghadūta,* the book
> demonstrates the importance of tragedy for classical Indian poetry and
> drama in the early centuries of the common era. These depictions from the
> Indian literary sphere, by their particular function and interest in the
> phenomenology of grief, challenge and reshape in a wholly new way our
> received understanding of tragedy.
>
>
> *Chapters and sub-headings:*
>
> *Preamble: A note on the Indian 'Medieval'*
>
>
> *Introduction Part I. The Tragic Middle*
>
> The Legacy of Looking
>
> The Cry of the Krauñca
>
> The Politics of Looking
>
> George Eliot and Endings
>
> William James and the 'Second Birth'
>
> Northrop Frye and unfinished comedy
>
> Kālidāsa and 'the second birth'
>
> Pathos in Indian Aesthetics
>
> Looking Elsewhere
>
>
> *Introduction Part II. Doubt, Obstacle, Deliberation, Death, Disaster: the
> Trial in Indian Aesthetics*
>
> Introducing the Trial
>
> An overview of the theory of narrative structure
>
> The *avasthā*s
>
> The *prakṛti*s
>
> The *sandhi*s
>
> Abhinavagupta and controversies over the *avamarśa*/*vimarśa*
>
> Character, survival and a universe of hazard
>
> The Trial in the works of Kālidāsa
>
> A précis of plots
>
>
> *Chapter 1. Kālidāsa and his Inheritance of Grief*
>
> Why Kālidāsa?
>
> Bharata and Kālidāsa
>
> The *Viśvantarajātaka *of Āryaśūra
>
> The *Saundarananda* of Aśvaghoṣa
>
> The *Rāmāyaṇa*
>
> Fate in the *Rāmāyaṇa*
>
> The curse in the *Rāmāyaṇa*
>
> Fate (*vidhi*), cure (*śāpa*), retribution (*karma*), God (Īśvara):
> tragic agency in Kālidāsa
>
>
> *Chapter 2. The Map of Melancholy: Lamentation and the Philosophical Pause*
>
> The joyous* kārya*s of the Raghuvaṃśa and the Kumārasambhava
>
> Lamentation (*vilāpa*) and the 'tragic middle' in the* Raghuvaṃśa* and
> the *Kumārasambhava*
>
> Purposes of the tragic middle
>
> Kinship between Aja's lament (*Ajavilāpa*) and Rati's lament (
> *Rativilāpa)*
>
> The map of melancholy
>
>
> *Chapter 3. On Losing and Finding Love: Conflict, Obstacle and Drama*
>
> Divided heroes in the *Śakuntalā* and the *Vikramorvaśīya*
>
> The Tragic Middle in the *Śakuntalā*
>
> The knowledge of the heart
>
> Not knowing correctly and doubt in the *Śakuntalā*
>
> Awareness and the ring
>
> Perceiving reality
>
> A 'madman' sings and dances: the tragic middle in the *Vikramorvaśīya*
>
>
> *Chapter 4. The Altered Heart: Anguish, Entreaty and Lyric*
>
> The *Meghadūta* as a lament
>
> The *Meghadūta *as the tragic middle made independent
>
> 'Internally liquid': cloud and* yakṣa* as one
>
> Love messages and 'insentient' messengers in earlier poetry
>
> The tragic middle in the *Meghadūta*
>
>
> *Conclusion*
>
>
> Thank you.
>
>
> With best wishes,
>
>
> Bihani Sarkar BA (English, First Class Honours), MPhil, D.Phil (Sanskrit),
> (Oxon.)
> Lecturer (hourly paid) in Religious Studies: Hinduism and Buddhism,
> University of Winchester (January-May 2021).
> Associate Faculty Member Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
> (2019-2022).
> Research Member of Common Room, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
> (2020-2022).
>
> *Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship*:
>
> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/heroic-shktism-9780197266106?cc=gb&lang=en&
>
> Alokā: Online Lessons in Ancient Indian Texts and Traditions:
> https://www.bihanisarkar.com/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


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