ABOUT THE BOOK This volume includes the first English translation of the Kūṭiyāṭṭam drama "Subhadra Dhananjaya," a Sanskrit drama composed some 900 years ago by King Kulasekhara Varman. Also included are the Sanskrit text of the drama, and a Sanskrit com mentary on it, as well as essays by Drs. Unni and Sullivan about this drama and Kūṭiyāṭṭam, a performance tradition sacred to Hindus in Kerala, southern India. Traditionally these dramas were performed in Hindu temples as devotional offerings to the deity. This translation and study has been done in the hope that others will become inter ested in this tradition.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR DR. N.P. UNNI (b.1936) has the unique distinction of being the first candidate to be awarded a Ph.D degree in Sanskrit by the University of Kerala. After a long teaching career in the Govt. Sanskrit College, Trivandrum, he joined the University of Kerala as Curator in the reputed Oriental Re search Institute and Manuscripts Library. Later he became Reader in Sanskrit (1972) in the Dept. of Sanskrit and from 1979 onwards he served as Professor and Head of the Dept.; till 1996. Now he is the Vice-Chancellor of the prestigious Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, Kerala. Dr. Unni has written/ edited/ com mented/published/more than 25 books in the different fields of study like Classical literature, Dramas, and Tantra, Arthaŝastra, Kerala history, Dramatur gy, Commentatorial literature, Literary criticism etc., etc. His magnun opus is an English translation with text and notes of the Natyasastra of Bharata.
BRUCE M. SULLIVAN (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is Professor of Religious Studies and Asian Studies at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona (U.S.A). He has also published books entitled Historical Dic tionary of Hinduism (1997) and Krsna Dvaipayana Vyasa and the Mahabharata : A New Interpretation (1990), the second edition of which is Seer of the Fifth Veda (1999). With Dr. N.P. Unni, he co-authored an earlier book. The Sun God's Daughter and King Samvarana (Nag Publishers, 1995), which is a translation and study of the Kütiyattam drama Tapati-Samvarana and the com panion volume to the present work.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
