Eloquently outlining Peddana’s groundbreaking innovations and his acute awareness of himself as an innovator, the terrific introduction by the translators Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman makes the point that: ‘We might think of Peddana, like Dante, as the epitome of an entire civilizational moment.’

Throbs with worldliness in its vivacious medley of prose and poetry… V. N. Rao and David Shulman’s nimble translation makes what otherwise might have been a baroque and chaotic text a pleasure to read. It also gives readers access to historical literature from southern India, a region whose written traditions rarely win the same national recognition as those from the North.

The Story of Manu, translated for the first time into any language, gives a much wider readership access to [Peddana’s] masterful, lyrical wordsmithery. It also affords, through its plot, a rare glimpse into the political and religious philosophy of its times.

Few Western poets have been so audacious and unconventional.