Murty Classical Library of India

       As longtime readers know, I've been very excited about the long-planned Murty Classical Library of India, which is coming out from Harvard University Press -- the first mention of the project at the Literary Saloon dates to 20 April 2010, after all ....
       Well, the time has almost come: the first volumes are to be released shortly, and in The New York Times there's a nice write-up by Jennifer Schuessler, Literature of India, Enshrined in a Series.
       As she points out (leaving me swooning, dizzy with anticipation ...):

The Murty Classical Library of India, whose first five dual-language volumes will be released next week, will include not only Sanskrit texts but also works in Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Persian, Prakrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and other languages. Projected to reach some 500 books over the next century, the series is to encompass poetry and prose, history and philosophy, Buddhist and Muslim texts as well as Hindu ones, and familiar works alongside those that have been all but unavailable to nonspecialists.

       So, yeah, exciting times indeed, and something very much to look forward to -- the best new series since NYU Press' Library of Arabic Literature (which has certainly not disappointed) started up.

       (I fantasize already: which volume to read first ? Obviously Abu'l-Fazl's Akbarnāma is the one that gets my immediate attention -- but one of the great things about this series is that it includes translations from less-available languages, and so maybe a Persian text isn't the one to start with ..... (In case you do want to, however: see the Harvard University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.)
       So maybe something a bit more out of my usual range ? Maybe ... Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women, translated from the Pali by Charles Hallisey ? (See the Harvard University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.))