From the Jacket:

Composed by one of the foremost Sanskrit poets and scholars of the earlier part of the 20th Cen. Pandit Nityananda Shastri, the Mahakavya delineates the life story of Lord Rama which he conceives as the ocean, the Udadhi, in fourteen cantos, the figure corresponding to the number of the jewels, the ratnas come out of it when churned. The figure also is reminiscent of the number of years of exile of the Lord.

The Mahakavya is composed in the age-old Citrakavya style which had long become extinct requiring as it does high proficiency in grammar, vocabulary and syntax. Pandit Nityanand Shastri possessed all these in abundance. Coupled with these was his extra-ordinary mastery over prosody and rhetorics as exemplified by the use by him of rare metres and figures of speech.

The Mahakavya with its varied descriptions of natural phenomena and human emotions and the use only of certain letters or the avoidance of them going with certain situations shows him rare command over expression which also is noticeable in designing his composition in such a way that each initial letter of the stanzas leads to the appearance of the first canto of the Valmiki Ramayana which gives a summary of the Rama story.

For the proper appreciation of readers this work is presented herewith in English version by one of the leading lights in Sanskrit of the present times.

About the Author:

He had his education from his father, the well-known poet Madhava Kavindra Dadhich of Jodhpur.

He wrote both in Sanskrit and Hindi. His Sanskrit works include the Marutistavah, the Lahuschandolankaradarpanah, the Hanumanddutam, the Sriramacaritabdhiratnam, the Aryamuktavali the Srikrsnastaprasah etc. Among his Hindi works are: the Adisaktivaibhava, the Rtuvilasa, the Hanumadduta, the Sriramakathakalpata, the Sridadhicicaritam and so on. The works edited by him are: the Ajitodayah, the Ajitacaritam, the Cetodutam, the Suktiratnavali, etc. He was the recipient of the titles Kavibhusana, Kaviratna, Asukavi, Vidyavacaspati and Mahakavi.

He did his Ph.D. at the Banaras Hindu University. He was Head of the Department of Sanskrit and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts of University of Delhi and the Vice Chancellor of Shri Jagannath Sanskrit University, Puri, Orissa. Presently he is Honorary Professor at JNU, New Delhi.

He has to his credit Mahakavyas, Khandakavyas, Prabandhakavya, Patrakavya (in two parts) and six works in critical writing including the magnum opus The Ramayana - A Linguistic Study besides one hundred and seventy-five research articles. He is the founding editor of two research journals, the Indological Studies and the Srijagannatha-jyotih and has edited three Felicitation Volumes.

He was Visiting Professor in six Universities on four Continents and lectured in Universities of Europe, North America, South and Southeast Asia and the Far East.

He is recipient of fifty-two national and international awards and honours including Padma Shri and four Honorary Doctorates from Indian and Foreign Universities.