An Empire Speaks: Kavya Narratives of India’s Cultural History
Rupinder S. Brar, Edited with an Introduction by Paul Michael Taylor
An Empire Speaks: Kavya Narratives of India’s Cultural History, presenting poems by Dr. Rupinder S. Brar, is designed with selected illustrative artworks relating to the themes of the poems. The title An Empire Speaks references an expression that Ralph Waldo Emerson used when he wrote of the Bhagavad Gita, “In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us.”
This book recounts, in English yet in the “kavya” poetic format, tales of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist and other South Asian traditions. The readers coming across historic figures or place names can surely enjoy the poetic presentation of these lively stories even without deep background. The editor’s introduction provides an initial overview of the narrative, by prefacing the poems with some brief summaries of each poem’s subject-matter and historic context, in the hope that readers will better see the consistency of narrative as spoken by this historic “Empire” through the words of the poet-author.
Rupinder Singh Brar is a physician, writer, philanthropist, and the director of Adventist Heart and Vascular Institute in Marysville, California. His first book, The Japji of Guru Nanak: A New Translation with Commentary (2019), was also edited by Paul Michael Taylor and is now available from Roli Books. His second, Along Came a Warrior: Banda’s Dharmyudh and the Sikh Theory of Just War (2022), was co-authored with Lt. General Raj Sujlana and published by Sanbun.
Paul Michael Taylor, a research anthropologist, is Director of the Smithsonian’s Asian Cultural History Program and Curator for Asia, Europe, and the Middle East in the Smithsonian’s Anthropology Department. He holds a bachelor’s degree from UCLA and a Ph.D. from Yale University, both in Anthropology, and is an author or editor of numerous books and scholarly articles. He developed the traveling exhibition “Sikhs: Legacy of the Punjab,” with associated catalog, and other publications including Sikh Art from the Kapany Collection (co-edited with Sonia Dhami) and Splendors of Punjab Heritage: Art from the Khanuja Family Collection.
Size Guide
×
Trending Now
