India has many versions of the story of Rama composed in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and various vernaculars of the north & south. Yet the ancient Sanskrit version, attributed to the sage-poet Valmiki, by tradition the first work of true poetry, is the source revered throughout India as the original account of the career of Rama, ideal man and incarnation of the great god Visnu. This great Sanskrit epic of ancient India has profoundly affected the Literature, Art, Religions and Cultures of countless millions of people in South and South-east Asia-an influence that is perhaps unparalleled in the history of World Literature. The volumes of this work will present the entire Ramayana for the first time translated on the basis of the critical edition, which is based on manuscripts representing all recensional traditions.
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About the Author(s)
Robert P. Goldman received his Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. He is Professor of Sanskrit and chair of the center for South Asian Studies at the Univ. of California at Berkeley, where he has taught Sanskrit for many years. He is the General Editor of the Valmiki Ramayana Translation Project as well as one of its principal translators. He has taught and published widely in the areas of Sanskrit literature, epic, and traditional Indian culture.