Indian poetry of the classical style, kāvya, has been long ignored by western Indologists. Nowadays opinion slowly tends to change in favour of this rather extreme poetry. Bhāravi's Kirātārjunīya, the poem treated in this volume is part of the tradition of epic poems or mahākāvyas. Six are recognized. The Kirātārjunīya marks the beginning of a new style of Indian poetry and represents one of the best written in this tradition. The plot is taken from the Mahābhārata.

The authors of...