Sur’s Ocean: Poems from the Early Tradition (Murty Classical Library of India) - Hardcover

Surdas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674427777 ISBN 13: 9780674427778

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2015

Synopsis

Surdas has been regarded as the epitome of artistry in Old Hindi religious poetry from the end of the sixteenth century, when he lived, to the present day. His fame rests upon his remarkable refashioning of the widely known narrative of the cowherd deity Krishna and his lover Radha into lyrics that are at once elegant and approachable. Surdas’s popularity led to the proliferation, through an energetic oral tradition, of poems ascribed to him, known as the Sūrsāgar.

Sur’s Ocean: Poems from the Early Tradition presents a dramatically new edition in Devanagari script and a lyrical English translation. This remarkable volume reconstructs the early tradition of Surdas’s verse―the 433 poems that were known to the singers of Surdas’s own time as his. Here Surdas stands out with a clarity never before achieved.

The Murty Classical Library of India makes available original texts and modern English translations of the masterpieces of literature and thought from across the whole spectrum of Indic languages over the past two millennia in the most authoritative and accessible formats on offer anywhere.

About this title

About the Author:

Kenneth E. Bryant is Associate Professor in Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.

John Stratton Hawley is Professor of Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University.

Review:

“These moving, elegant and accessible poems were hugely popular in their times spawning an oral tradition so vibrant that poems continued to be composed in the tradition started by Sur, under his name, by several other poets as well.”―Pragya Tiwari, India at LSE blog

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0674427777
• ISBN 13: 9780674427778
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 1072
• Editor: Bryant Kenneth E.