Harvard University Press is marking the 10th anniversary of its Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI) with the release of Ten Indian Classics, a new anthology showcasing the breadth of South Asian literary traditions spanning 2,500 years. The volume, which launches January 28, features English translations from multiple classical languages across the Indian subcontinent.
"Every good idea isn't always had in English," Sharmila Sen, editorial director at Harvard University Press, told PW. "It's my responsibility to our anglophone readership to bring the best ideas, new research, and discoveries that can be happening in other places and other languages."
The anthology demonstrates the linguistic and cultural diversity of the subcontinent through carefully selected excerpts from the MCLI series. "We have Persian texts, we have Hindi, we have Tamil," Sen said, explaining that the collection moves chronologically from the 2,500-year-old Therīgāthā, which contains the earliest known women's writing in the world, to the works of Mir Taqi Mir, a great Urdu poet.
Sen noted how Urdu itself reflects the region's complex cultural history, evolving from a military camp language to become the medium of refined poetic expression. "Urdu is associated with very refined poetic literary culture, like nightingales and roses and Persian culture," she said. "But the actual language was basically a language that was a big mixture of Arabic and Persian and local Indian languages."
The MCLI series, established in 2015 through a gift from Rohan Murty while he was a Harvard computer science PhD student, has published 47 volumes to date. Each book features bilingual text with fresh translations and newly designed typefaces for various Indian scripts. "We commissioned new typefaces from some of the best typographers in the world of non-Roman typography," Sen said. "We made a conscious decision we would not have transliteration. The original text is in the original script."
The series stands apart from other classical translation projects, Sen noted, because "the place of Greek and Latin classics in the western tradition is not the same as the place of Indic classics." Sen highlighted how many of these works are being translated into English for the first time, creating unique challenges for translators who cannot build upon previous translation traditions.
"Many of our translators are pioneers," Sen said. "When you translate Caesar today, you're standing on the shoulders of giants, sometimes centuries of translation tradition. But many of our translators can't say that, because the works haven't been translated ever into a modern language."
Looking ahead, Sen emphasized the project's long-term vision, noting that "the goal is to have 100 years of publishing and 500 volumes” and citing the Loeb Classics Library as an inspiration. In the near term, the MCLI has two new volumes planned for May 2025 and another for October 2025.
Through partnerships with such distributors as HarperCollins India, the series aims to reach readers across global markets, with particular attention to engaging young readers in South Asia. "We're not making books in America for Americans only," Sen said. "If we truly want to progress, we cannot lose our traditions, our languages, our literature, and our culture. Instead of telling somebody 'hey, Grandma and Grandpa left you amazing riches,' I'm saying, 'here's the key to the family vault. Open it, touch it, try it on for size.' I would rather give young people the ability to read for themselves and make up their own minds about what was the past, who we were, how people lived, what they believed."