"Friendly Advice" by Narayana, and, "King Vikrama's Adventures" (Clay Sanckrit Library)
Judit Torzsok
Naráyana’s best-seller gives its reader much more than “Friendly Advice.” In one handy collection—closely related to the world-famous Pañcatantra or Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom —numerous animal fables are interwoven with human stories, all designed to instruct wayward princes. Tales of canny procuresses compete with those of cunning crows and tigers. An intrusive ass is simply thrashed by his master, but the meddlesome monkey ends up with his testicles crushed. One prince manages to enjoy himself with a merchant’s wife with her husband’s consent, while another is kicked out of paradise by a painted image. This volume also contains the compact version of King Víkrama’s Adventures, thirty-two popular tales about a generous emperor, told by thirty-two statuettes adorning his lion-throne.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org
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Reviews for "Friendly Advice" by Narayana, and, "King Vikrama's Adventures" (Clay Sanckrit Library)
New Criterion
"Published in the geek-chic format."
BookForum
"The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance."
Willis G. Regier
The Chronicle Review
"No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience."
The Times Higher Education Supplement
"Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs."
Tricycle