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By Bhavabhūti
Translated by Sheldon I. Pollock
Foreword by Girish Karnad |
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“Rama’s Last Act” by Bhava·bhuti is counted among the greatest Sanskrit dramas. The work at once dramatizes the “Ramáyana”—it is one of the earliest theatrical adaptations of Valmíki’s epic masterpiece—and revises its most intractable episode, the hero’s rejection of his beloved wife. Human agency in the face of destiny, the power of love, and the capacity of art to make sense of such mysteries are the themes explored in this singular literary achievement of the Indian stage.
458 pp | ISBN 978-0-8147-6733-7 | Co-published by New York University Press and JJC Foundation
About the Translator
Sheldon I. Pollock is William B. Ransford Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Columbia University. He has also translated Ramáyana II: Ayódhya and Ramáyana III: The Forest of the Ramáyana and “Bouquet of Rasas” and “River of Rasas”.
He is the author of The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India and editor of Cosmopolitanism and Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia.
About the Foreword Writer
Rama’s Last Act (Uttararāmacarita)
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