Mahabharata Book Four: Viráta: Virata (Clay Sanskrit Library)

New
Hardcover
2007
$26.20

The Book of Virata details the Pandavas' 13th year in exile, when they live disguised in King Virata's court. They suffer the humiliation of becoming servants; a topic explored both through comedy and pathos. Having maintained their disguise until the very end of the year, then their troubles really begin. Bhima is forced to come to Draupadi's rescue when King Virata's general, Kichaka, sets his sights on her. Duryodhana and the Tri*gartas decide to invade the defeated Virata's kingdom, unaware the Pandavas are hidden there. In the ensuing battles the Pandavas play a crucial role, save Virata and reveal their true identities. The book ends in celebration, with the Pandavas ready to return from exile and reclaim their kingdom. However, the battles in Virata foreshadow the war to come, proving it will not be easy.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

Synopsis

The Book of Virata details the Pandavas' 13th year in exile, when they live disguised in King Virata's court. They suffer the humiliation of becoming servants; a topic explored both through comedy and pathos. Having maintained their disguise until the very end of the year, then their troubles really begin. Bhima is forced to come to Draupadi's rescue when King Virata's general, Kichaka, sets his sights on her. Duryodhana and the Tri*gartas decide to invade the defeated Virata's kingdom, unaware the Pandavas are hidden there. In the ensuing battles the Pandavas play a crucial role, save Virata and reveal their true identities. The book ends in celebration, with the Pandavas ready to return from exile and reclaim their kingdom. However, the battles in Virata foreshadow the war to come, proving it will not be easy.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

$26.20

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 516
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 01 Feb 2007
ISBN 10: 081473183X
ISBN 13: 9780814731833

Media Reviews

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

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

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

Published in the geek-chic format.
-BookForum

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

Author Bio

Kathleen Garbutt translates and edits Sanskrit literature full time for the JJC Foundation, co-publishers (with NYU Press) of the Clay Sanskrit Library.