Description: "Bhishma," the sixth book of the eighteen-book epic The Maha-bhárata, narrates the first ten days of the great war between the Káuravas and the Pándavas. This first volume covers four days from the beginning of the great battle and includes the famous "Bhágavad-gita ("The Song of the Lord"), presented here within its original epic context. In this "bible" of Indian civilization the charioteer Krishna empowers his disciple Árjuna to resolve his personal dilemma: whether to follow his righteous duty as a warrior and slay his opponent relatives in the just battle, or to abstain from fighting and renounce the warrior code to which he is born.
Review Quotes: "Now an ambitious new publishing project, the Clay Sanskrit Library brings together leading Sanskrit translators and scholars of Indology from around the world to celebrate in translating the beauty and range of classical Sanskrit literature. . . . Published as smart green hardbacks that are small enough to fit into a jeans pocket, the volumes are meant to satisfy both the scholar and the lay reader. Each volume has a transliteration of the original Sanskrit text on the left-hand page and an English translation on the right, as also a helpful introduction and notes. Alongside definitive translations of the great Indian epics -- 30 or so volumes will be devoted to the Maha-bhárat itself -- Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartri-hari, the pungent satire of Jayánta Bhatta and the roving narratives of Dandin, among others. All these writers belong properly not just to Indian literature, but to world literature."-- "LiveMint"