[INDOLOGY] four Sanskrit comic books

[Tyler Neill]

One last update:

Thanks to Thomas Kintaert, three more high quality Sanskrit comic books
(two ACK—Kalidasa, Vikramaditya—and one Katha Bharti—Gita chapter 10) are
also now up and linked on Vitus’ list, bringing the total ACK Sanskrit
coverage to nine items (interestingly, with two versions of Kalidasa).
Combined with the additional materials at the “Comics in Sanskrit” user on
Archive and on Chandamama, that should be enough to keep anyone with an
interest in this sort of reading material busy for quite a while.

I’m very pleased with the result of this journey, thanks all again!

Tyler

On Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 1:58 PM Tyler Neill <tyler.g.neill at gmail.com> wrote:

> Many thanks for everyone's responses on this Sanskrit comic book thread!
>
> To sum up so far:
>
> 1) Priya knew of 4 more Amar Chitra Katha in Sanskrit (Kālīdāsa [sic],
> Kaṇṇagi, Hakka-Bukka,  and Napoleon Bonaparte 😂) bringing the current
> total to 8.
>
>    - I've just noticed that these were uploaded by a user called "Comics
>    in Sanskrit <https://archive.org/details/@comics_in_sanskrit/uploads>",
>    who also uploaded numerous other Sanskrit-translation items, including two
>    Tinkle competition winners ('80 and '84) and various Japanese manga (a
>    bunch of Doraemon, plus several not-safe-for-work romances!)
>
>
> 2) Vitus created a handy list on Archive to organize access to the 8 Amar
> Chitra Kathas, for starters:
> https://archive.org/details/@vangrmr/lists/1/sanskrit-comics (the general
> name suggests that other series are can be included, as well). Let's
> hopefully continue uncovering and uploading more!
>
> 3) Asko pointed out my mistake (thanks!), so now we know that the Ramayana
> item is in fact Amar Chitra Katha, as well. Too bad that people digitize
> these items without any front matter, leaving us these puzzles to solve.
>
>    - I've now deleted my original upload with the misleading identifier
>    ("mystery"), and the new item is at
>    https://archive.org/details/amar-chitra-katha-ramayana-sanskrit (
>    *@Vitus*: Can you please update your list with this new one?)
>
>
> 4) Madhav and Satyanad remind us that the similar publication Chandamama
> is extremely well organized online, in Sanskrit (
> https://www.chandamama.in/sanskrit/) and other languages.
>
> 5) Joel is interested in creating new comic and/or kids books based on
> Sanskrit or other classic texts. (He will almost certainly be interested in
> the above "Comics in Sanskrit" items!)
>
> I'm also still curious to hear what others may know about Pandit Gulam
> Dastgir, and/or the general history of these Sanskrit Amar Chitra Katha
> translations. Perhaps there's an article out there somewhere?
>
> Kind wishes,
> Tyler
>
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2025 at 8:03 AM <indology-request at list.indology.info>
> wrote:
>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Tyler Neill <tyler.g.neill at gmail.com>
>> To: indology at list.indology.info
>> Cc:
>> Bcc:
>> Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2025 09:57:02 -0400
>> Subject: [INDOLOGY] four Sanskrit comic books
>> Dear List,
>>
>> For over a decade, I've had in my possession two rare Amar Chitra Katha
>> comic books in Sanskrit (गंगा and भगवान् बुद्धः), given out by Sadananda
>> Das to students in his spoken Sanskrit summer course (Heidelberg, 2013). I
>> also discovered another one already digitized online (हनुमान्), plus one
>> more Sanskrit comic book (रामायण) that's not Amar Chitra Katha. Two of the
>> Amar Chitra Katha items clearly note the role of Pandit Gulam Dastgir, who
>> I believe was the translator of all three.
>>
>> Checking now, I'm surprised to see that no one else has yet made these
>> items easily available online, e.g., on Archive. They are great learning
>> tools, if nothing else.
>>
>> To fix this, I've now digitized my two and uploaded all four to Archive:
>> https://archive.org/details/amar-chitra-katha-ganga-sanskrit
>> https://archive.org/details/amar-chitra-katha-bhagavan-buddhah-sanskrit
>> https://archive.org/details/amar-chitra-katha-hanuman-sanskrit
>> https://archive.org/details/mystery-comic-book-ramayana-sanskrit
>>
>> Please enjoy and share widely. Let me know if there are any copyright
>> concerns, or if I can improve the metadata to make them easier to find.
>> Also, if you have or know of additional Sanskrit comic books of this sort,
>> please be in touch, maybe I can continue organizing better access.
>>
>> Kind wishes,
>> Tyler
>>
>
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