Customer Reviews

Tales of Ancient India (Phoenix Books)

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This interesting book provides fourteen stories from ancient India, most of which have sub-stories in them. They are typically Indian in their style and content, dealing with characters like kings, princesses, aristocrats and Brahmins along with vampires, demigods and courtesans. The events narrated happen in kingdoms specified and places known to the Indians. The narratives are particularly interesting with elaborate descriptions and detailed characterizations. Each story contains a lesson and a moral. These are drawn mainly from two ancient Sanskrit collections of stories, which themselves are adaptations of a lost work named 'Brhatkatha', the writing of which itself is another interesting tale narrated in the 'Introduction'. These stories concern the northern India, dealing with an age from the first until the seventh century A.D.

J A B van Buitenen who was professor and chairman of the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago has translated these stories from Sanskrit and presented them without any embellishments or updating. That makes the original style and fantasy of these tales available to the reader. These stories provide a good taste of Indian narrative literature of old to the inquisitive Western reader. They are sure to appeal to anyone who enjoys action, adventure and characterization.