Janakiharana of Kumaradasa is the first Sanskrit Mahakavya, so far as the
extant literature goes, to deal solely with the whole of the
Ramayana-story. Its further interest is that it was produced in Ceylon,
showing thereby the wider world over which Sanskrit had its sway.
After manuscripts of the full text of the poem in twenty cantos had to come
to light in South India, what is now presented was the first systematic and
critical study to be undertaken to the author and the text and its position
vis-a-vis other Mahakavyas. In addition to the above study and the critical
edition of the cantos which were at that time unpublished, the book offers
an examination of the large number of extra-verses found in some MSS of the
text and showing them as interpolations.
Review(s)
"In the present work the author had made a very intensive study of the poem
of Kumaradasa from the historical, cultural and the rhetorician's point of
view... The romantic story of the discovery (of the MSS) of this brilliant
classical Mahakavya, ne
About the Author(s)
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