Contribution of Women to Sanskrit Literature

This volume is intended to serve as an anthology of selected Sanskrit verses of as many as 33 poetesses. The verses put together for the first time in the present work, our specimens of Sanskrit poems that Indian women were capable of producing.
The subjects of the verses, included in this work, may be broadly arranged under 12 heads- viz. deity, human beings, beauty of features, love; animals, birds and insects; Nature; seasons; trees and flowers; inanimate things; philosophy; religion; and miscellaneous. Of these, love is by far the most popular topic. Not a few poetess have written on nothing else. The description of female beauty is the next most popular theme.
The object of this volume is to bring together for the first time, the poetic genius of the Sanskrit poetess, ancient and mediaeval. The matter has been collected mostly from unpublished manuscripts. The work also deals with several Prakrit poetesses.
In the words of L. D. Barnett – “the present work of Prof. Choudhary gives us all that Time as spared of the verses written by women in Sanskrit and Prakrit and for this service we must be deeply grateful to him. It may then truly be said that in many departments of poetic, artistic, and intellectual culture, India owes a great debt to its women”.