Sur’s Ocean: Classic Hindi Poetry in Translation

An award-winning translation of Hindi verses composed by one of India’s treasured poets.

The blind poet Surdas has been regarded as the epitome of artistry in Hindi verse from the end of the sixteenth century, when he lived, to the present day. His fame rests upon his remarkable refashioning of the widely known narrative of the Hindu deity Krishna and his lover Radha into lyrics that are at once elegant and approachable. Surdas’s popularity led to the proliferation, through an energetic oral tradition, of poems ascribed to him, known collectively as the Sursagar.

This award-winning translation reconstructs the early tradition of Surdas’s verse-the poems that were known to the singers of Surdas’s own time as his. Here Surdas stands out with a clarity never before achieved.