Friendly Advice" by Narayana, And, "King Vakrama's Adventures

"The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance." --Willis G. Regier, "The Chronicle Review""No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience." --"The Times Higher Education Supplement""The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot. . . . Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes." --"New Criterion""Published in the geek-chic format." --"BookForum""Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs." --"Tricycle"Now an ambitious new publishing project, the Clay Sanskrit Library brings together leading Sanskrit translators and scholars of Indology from around the world to celebrate in translating the beauty and range of classical Sanskrit literature. . . . Published as smart green hardbacks that are small enough to fit into a jeans pocket, the volumes are meant to satisfy both the scholar and the lay reader. Each volume has a transliteration of the original Sanskrit text onthe left-hand page and an English translation on the right, as also a helpful introduction and notes. Alongside definitive translations of the great Indian epics -- 30 or so volumes will be devoted to the Mahabhrat itself -- Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartrihari, the pungent satire of Jayanta Bhatta and the roving narratives of Dandin, among others. All these writers belong properly not just to Indian literature, but to world literature. --"LiveMint"The Clay Sanskrit Library has recently set out to change the scene by making available well-translated dual-language (English and Sanskrit) editions of popular Sanskritic texts for the public. --"Namarupa"Naryanas best-seller gives its reader much more than Friendly Advice. In one handy collection -- closely related to the world-famous Pacatantra or Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom -- numerous animal fables are interwoven with human stories, all designed to instruct wayward princes. Tales of canny procuresses compete with those of cunning crows and tigers. An intrusive ass is simply thrashed by his master, but the meddlesome monkey ends up with his testicles crushed. One prince manages to enjoy himself with a merchants wife with her husbands consent, while another is kicked out of paradise by a painted image. This volume also contains the compact version of King Vkramas Adventures, thirty-two popular tales about a generous emperor, told by thirty-two statuettes adorning his lion-throne.Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC FoundationFor more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.orgTorzsok, Judit is the author of 'Friendly Advice" by Narayana, And, "King Vakrama's Adventures ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780814783054 and ISBN 0814783058.