The Absent Traveller

The Gathasaptasati is perhaps the oldest extant anthology of poetry from South Asia containing our very earliest examples of secular verse. Reputed to have been compiled by the Satavahana king Hala in the second century CE it is a celebrated collection of 700 verses in Maharashtri Prakrit composed in the compact distilled gatha form. The anthology has attracted several learned commentaries and now through Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s acclaimed translation of 207 verses from the anthology readers of English at last have access to its poems. The speakers are mostly women and whether young or old married or single they touch on the subject of sexuality with frankness sensitivity and every once in a while humour which never ceases to surprise. The Absent Traveler includes an elegant and stimulating translator’s note and an afterword by Martha Ann Selby that provides an admirable introduction to Prakrit literature in general and the Gathasaptasati in particular. About the Author Arvind Krishna Mehrotra was born in Lahore in 1947. He is the author of four books of poems the most recent of which isThe Transfiguring Places (1998). He has editedThe Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets (1992)An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English (2003) andThe Last Bungalow Writings on Allahabad (2007).