The introduction to this translation of Sanskrit poetry is very good. Unfortunately, I have to disagree with the other reviewers about the translation. The English rhymes in such short poems make them seem utterly trivial. The amount of dexterity required to produce a few rhymes gives them a slightness, which I suspect cannot be true of the originals. I cannot read Sanskrit, but since it is an inflected language there is room for subleties that are obliterated by the one dimensional tendency of pushing towards a rhyme. One gets no sense of the art and craft that we are told is in these possibly sophisticated miniature poems.