Lovers of Sanskrit Kāvya and those with a research interest in the social, cultural and literary history of Kashmir might be interested in the following publication:

Bacchanal im Himmel und andere Proben aus Maṅkha

(A Bacchanal in Heaven and Additional Specimens from Maṅkha)

The volume contains five Sargas (2-3, 14-15, 25) of Maṅkha’s Śrīkaṇṭhacarita (c. AD 1144), re-edited in Sanskrit and accompanied by an annotated German translation on facing pages. Four of the five chapters have been translated here for the first time.

Sarga 2 (“Connoisseurs, Ignoramuses, Enviers”) contains Maṅkha’s criticism of literature and of literati with revealing remarks on plagiarism as it seems to have been rampant in his days.

Sarga 3 (“About myself”) starts with a description of pre-Islamic Kashmir and Śrīnagar as the poet’s home town. An autobiographical sketch follows, pertaining to the careers and religious affiliations of his father and his three brothers (Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, Buddhist). In this chapter, Maṅkha also discloses the authorial intention for his composition.

Sarga 14 (“A Bacchanal in Heaven”) depicts a drinking session of the Immortals with a view to tuning the participants in on lovemaking. The divine performance of the latter is masterfully portrayed in Sarga 15. Both chapters abound in minute, sometimes frivolous, but never tasteless details. They bear potential relevance for our knowledge of the material and social culture of wine drinking in medieval Kashmir.

Sarga 25 („Author Reading“), translated for the second time after Kreyenborg’s first attempt (1930), contains, in the poet’s own words, a description of his public reading of the Śrīkaṇṭhacarita to a circle of handpicked connoisseurs and critics, present among them also Maṅkha’s teacher Ruyyaka and his junior contemporary Kalhaṇa.

 

Walter Slaje, Bacchanal im Himmel und andere Proben aus Maṅkha. [AWL. Veröffentlichungen der Indologischen Kommission. 3.] Mainz: Harrassowitz 2015. ISBN 978-3-447-10456-2.

 

Available from:

1) Harrassowitz Publishers

http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_1081.ahtml

2) Amazon.de:

http://tinyurl.com/plw35d6

NB: Now also available from Amazon.de:

Jonarāja’s Rājataraṅgiṇī (“Kingship in Kashmir“):

http://tinyurl.com/o9g6738

Kind regards,

WS