Suleiman Charitra

A Hindu poet, Kalyana Malla, renders in classical Sanskrit a biblical story for his Muslim patron, a Lodhi prince of the sixteenth century, in this unusual intermingling of cultural traditions. The sensual unfolding of David and Bathsheba s love story-the bathing scene, David s infatuation, his pursuit of Bathsheba, and their eventual union-is strikingly portrayed in the language of the gods through its shringara rasa, or the erotic mode, by a writer better known for the sex manual Ananga Ranga. This marvellous, first-ever English translation of Suleiman Charitra-a delightful Sanskrit rendering of Hebraic and Arabic tales-elegantly brings together the east and the west.