Relatives : Being Further Verses Translated from the Sanskrit

"The verses here presented are from many sources, and the selections are of very different length and date. The only bond of union is this — that these poems are all taken from the ancient Sanskrit language, and all seemed to the translator worthy of an English rendering. The oldest selection is the satirical Hymn to Faith, which is found in the Rigveda, and may have been composed more than a thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era. The latest is the Thief's Song, written in Kashmir in the eleventh century A. D. There are selections from Mahabharata and Ramayana, the two great epics whose beginnings precede by centuries the birth of Christ. There are poems by Bhartrihari and Kalidasa, poets for whom the date 500 A. D. is convenient, though probably only approximate. There are bits from the two fable books, Hitopadesha and Panchatantra, whose material is much more ancient than their present form."