This groundbreaking volume offers a selection of writing in thirteen languages (ranging from the poems of Buddhist nuns’ of the sixth century B. C. to the first novel written in English in the nineteenth century), which have never before been available as à collection or in English. Providing both an extraordinary body of
literature and an important documentary resource, these writings illuminate the lives of Indian women over a period of 2000 years.The critical introductions and biographical headnotes map women’s shifting roles and varying responses to the social,political and cultural upheavals of the time.