The Devil Take Love

Under the shadow of imminent death a great poet reflects on the journey of his life and the choices that have led him to this fateful moment. And so begins the story of Bhartrihari the greatest Sanskrit poet of love. As a young man Bhartrihari arrives in the magnificent city of Ujjayini where his astonishing brilliance as a poet is recognized immediately and he flourishes under the patronage of the formidable young king of Avanti. But the journey of his self is not as smooth caught as he is between sexual passion and erotic disenchantment. And it is this ceaseless conflict between morality and desire that will push the boundaries of Bhartrihari’s own creative genius at great personal cost. About the Author Sudhir Kakar is a distinguished psychoanalyst and writer. His critically acclaimed novels The Ascetic of Desire Ecstasy Mira and the Mahatma and The Crimson Throne published by Penguin in India have been translated into several languages around the world. He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards the most recent being the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2012. In 2005 the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur profiled Sudhir Kakar as one of the twenty-five most important thinkers of the world.