Indian Poetry

This collection gathers Sir Edwin Arnold’s verse translations of classical Indian poetry, drawn from the Sanskrit and reworked for English readers. Its centerpiece is “The Indian Song of Songs,” Arnold’s rendering of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda, a lyrical cycle celebrating the love of Krishna and Radha. Alongside it stand two books from the Mahabharata, which Arnold called “The Iliad of India,” and “Proverbial Wisdom,” a selection of moral verses from the Shlokas of the Hitopadesa, together with shorter oriental pieces. Arnold aimed to carry the music and imagery of the originals into flowing English meter rather than plain prose. For Victorian audiences it opened a window onto Hindu devotional and epic literature, and it still serves as a readable entry point to these Sanskrit sources.