Theft of a Tree: A Tale by the Court Poet of the Vijayanagara Empire: 32 (Murty Classical Library of India) - Softcover

Book 46 of 49: Murty Classical Library of India

Timmana; Nandi

 
9780674295919: Theft of a Tree: A Tale by the Court Poet of the Vijayanagara Empire: 32 (Murty Classical Library of India)

Synopsis

The first English translation of a thousand-year-old story of Krishna and his wife Satyabhama, retold by the most famous court poet of the Vijayanagara Empire.

Legend has it that the sixteenth-century Telugu poet Nandi Timmana composed Theft of a Tree, or Pārijātāpaharaṇamu, to help the wife of Krishnadevaraya, king of the south Indian Vijayanagara Empire, win back her husband’s affections. Timmana based his work on a popular millennium-old Krishna tale.

Theft of a Tree recounts how Krishna stole the wish-granting pārijāta tree from the garden of Indra, king of the gods. Krishna takes the tree to please his favorite wife, Satyabhama, who is upset when he gifts his chief queen a single divine flower. After battling Indra, he plants the pārijāta for Satyabhama―but she must perform a rite temporarily relinquishing it and her husband to enjoy endless happiness.

This is the first English translation of the poem, which prefigures the modern Telugu novel with its unprecedented narrative unity.

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About the Authors

Harshita Mruthinti Kamath is the Visweswara Rao and Sita Koppaka Associate Professor in Telugu Culture, Literatures and History at Emory University.

Velcheru Narayana Rao is the Krishnadevaraya Emeritus Professor of Languages and Cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780674245891: Theft of a Tree (Murty Classical Library of India)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  067424589X ISBN 13:  9780674245891
Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2022
Hardcover