An award-winning translator finds surprisingly modern themes in a selection of erotic and religious stanzas from one of classical India's most celebrated poets.

"A single stanza of the poet Amaru," declared a ninth-century poetry critic, "may provide the taste of love equal to what's found in whole volumes." Graceful an

Young, doe-eyed maidens beguile lovelorn men. Timeless wisdom is dispensed through brief, colourful vignettes. The bounty of the earth is celebrated even as the