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A prince once gave up everything to attain inner peace, creating the world’s most treasured and well-known to coming-of-age story: Siddhartha’s journey to Enlightenment; his transformation from a mere mortal to an enlightened soul. Join Siddhartha, the ‘brooding dove’, as he wins Yashodhara’s hand in marriage, challenges his father-in-law, celebrates with wine and festivities and then, to everyone’s surprise and consternation, renounce it all. Seeking the path of the wise, he laid the noble path for us. This is the story of how an ordinary mortal came to see the light.

Aged ninety-two, Shiv K. Kumar injects the wisdom of a lifetime of writing into this immortal tale, fashioning the Buddha’s story into, possibly, each of our own. Rough Passage to the Bodhi Tree presents a vivid, evocative fable of the Buddha's life, with a strong spiritual element and wisdom to it. Shiv Kumar has made the Buddha's complex philosophiies, especiially of compassion and good action, deeply accessible

About the Author

Shiv K. Kumar has donned many hats lived many lives: poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, translator, academic and critic. He was born in Lahore, where he received his school and college education. He obtained his doctorate in English literature from the University of Cambridge. Professor Kumar has published thirteen volumes of poetry, five novels, two collections of short stories and a play. His poems have appeared in several renowned newspapers and journals including the New York Times, Poetry Review (London), and Western Humanities Review – and been broadcast on the BBC. In 1978, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (London). He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for his collection of poems Trapfalls in the Sky. In 2001, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to literature.