Rohan Murty classical library of India launches with 5 books

Translations of pre-modern Indian texts such as Bullhe Shah's lyrics written in Gurmukhi or poems of Buddhist women are among the first five books made available to global readers through the Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI), launched here today.
Set up by Harvard University Press with the help of a personal endowment in 2010 by Rohan Murty, son of Infosys founder Narayan Murty, the library aims to publish as many as 500 books over the course of the century.
"India has one the longest continuous multilingual literary histories in the world. Many of those works are no longer available. Our task is to make those materials available in the best possible ways and try and reach unique readers," Sheldon Pollock, the General Editor of the series, said.

Pollock, a celebrated Sanskrit scholar, said the aim was to make stories from India, "which was once considered the cloth makers of the world as well as the storytellers of the world," travel all over the world.
The series of translations are spread across a vast array of Indian languages, including Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Pali, Punjabi, Persian, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
The five initial books offered by the library are "Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women", "Sufi Lyrics", "The History of Akbar: Volume 1", "The Story of Manu" and "Sur's Ocean."

"These books are as good as books can get," Pollock said.

Meanwhile Rohan Murty who made a contribution to his alma mater Harvard University when he was a doctoral student there said, "I am very excited about the series. When people refer to classics I want them to know it is more than just the Greek and Latin ones."
"This series should make it possible for the next generation of Indians to have access to the best of our classical literature."
The books have been printed with text in regional script alongside translation. Introductions, explanatory commentaries, textual notes, and clear, contemporary translations are provided.
Asked whether the library would be digitised, Murty said, "We are very much in active discussion to produce digital versions of these works. I would love to see these digital version possibly even free if we can in a sense sustainable so we could expect it."

Pollock who envisions himself as a "tech dreamer" said, "It will take time but the day will come when all the communal problems of the script will be resolved with a button."
"The MCLI's reach and its guiding mission of making works accessible to students, scholars, and general readers around the globe render it exceptional," Pollock said.