Bibliography
About the Poets

BIHARI 1595-1664
His best known collection, the SATTASAI (the 'seven-hundred') was written under the patronage of the Maharaja of Amber, Jayasingha, in the 1640's.

VIDYAPATI 1352-1406
A brahmin scholar and poet, he was patronized by the kings of Maithil in Northern India.

VIDYAKARA around 1100
A Bengali Buddhist scholar, who compiled the Subhasita-Ratna-Khosa ('Treasury of Court Poetry') at the end of the 11th century.

VIDYA active ca. 650
"All agree that Vidya (or Vijjaka) is the earliest and finest of Sanscrit women poets. Or, if any woman wrote before her, the work hasn't survived. She wrote freely and convincingly of extramarital
love, with a tenderness of expression I have not met elsewhere. Though only thirty poems survive, they convince me she is one of the planet's most durable love poets." (Andrew Schelling, in The Cane Groves of Narmada River)

MIRABAI 1498- 1548
Born a princess in Merta, Rajasthan, Mirabai was possessed by a spiritual passion for Lord Krishna so great, that she defied her family and her in-laws, to pursue the life of a wandering worshipper.
Her songs of passion and devotion for her Lord inspire electrifying popularity to this day, and have made her the most renowned poet of India.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE 1861-1941
Bengali poet, philosopher and and fervent nationalist, he won the Nobel prize for literature in 1913. He was considered the embodiment of modern Indian culture and India's poet laureate.

RUMI 1207-1273
"Rumi, the Persian poet, to the recent amazement of many people in the Western culture as well as the Islamic culture, has been able to speak directly to contemporary readers. One of the greatest pieces of good luck that has happened recently in American poetry is Coleman Barks's agreement to translate poem after poem of Rumi. Rumi, like
Kabir, is able to contain and continue intricate theological arguments and at the same time speak directly from the heart or to the heart." (Robert Bly, in The Soul is Here for It's Own Joy)

Bibliography
Acknowledgments

ROBERT BLY
THE SOUL IS HERE FOR ITS OWN JOY, sacred poems from many cultures
The ECCO Press 1995

COLEMAN BARKS
THE ESSENTIAL RUMI Translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
HarperCollins 1995

COLEMAN BARKS
THE SOUL OF RUMI
a New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
Harper-Collins 2001

ANDREW SCHELLING
DROPPING THE BOW
Poems from Ancient India
Broken Moon Press 1991

IN THE CANE GROVES OF NARMADA RIVER
erotic poems from Old India,
Translated and introduced
by Andrew Schelling
City Lights Books 1998

FOR LOVE OF THE DARK ONE,
Songs of Mirabai,
translations by Andrew Schelling
Hohm Press 1998

BIHARI - THE SATASAI
Translated by Krishna P. Bahadur
Penguin Books 1990

POEMS FROM THE SANSKRIT Translated by John Brough
Penguin Books 1968

About Indian Poetry