The Rise of Wisdom Moon

By Kṛṣṇamiśra
Translated by Matthew Kapstein
Foreword by J.N. Mohanty

“The Rise of Wisdom Moon” (Prabodhacandrodaya) was composed during the mid-eleventh century by Krishna·mishra, an otherwise unknown poet in the service of the Chandella dynasty, whose cultural and religious capital was Khajuraho. The early popularity of Krishna·mishra’s work led to its frequent translation into the vernaculars of both North and South India, and even Persian as well. Famed as providing the enduring model of the allegorical play for all subsequent Sanskrit literature, “The Rise of Wisdom Moon,” offers a satirical account of the conquest of the holy city of Varanasi by Nescience, the war of liberation waged by the forces of Intuition, and the freedom of the Inner Man that then follows the rise of Wisdom. But at the outset, when Nescience still has the upper hand, such developments seem unlikely. As one of his minions, Lord Lust, puts it:

Pleasing palace pavillions,
young beauties, vines buzzing with bees,
fresh jasmine blossoms,
moonlit night, perfumed breeze—
If these, my unfailing weapons,
win me the world by conquest,
of what use then is Wisdom’s rise,
what use Intuition’s bequest?

396 pp. | ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-4838-1 | ISBN-10: 0-8147-4838-4 | Co-published by New York University Press and JJC Foundation

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Download the title page and table of contents and one chapter of the book (in English and Sanskrit on facing pages), bundled together as a .pdf file. You can also download the CSL Front Matter (6pp, 1.3mb). It describes how we transliterate the Sanskrit text in the Roman alphabet and includes a guide to pronunciation. It also explains our system of representing phonetic fusion (sandhi).

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About the Translator

Director of Tibetan Religious Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris) and Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies, University of Chicago.

About the Foreword Writer

J.N. Mohanty is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Temple University. His latest book, Essays on Consciousness and Interpretation (Edited with an Introduction by Tara Chatterjee), will be published by OUP India in June 2009.

Top 50 Verbs

Rank	Unique Words	Number of Occurrences
1	Like	46
2	Hail	46
3	Come	39
4	Enter	35
5	Look	34
6	Know	33
7	Get	33
8	Blessed	31
9	Looking	31
10	Said	31

11	See	30
12	Say	30
13	Living	30
14	Going	29
15	Rise	27
16	Set	27
17	Listen	25
18	Tell	23
19	Made	23
20	Enters	23

21	Seems	22
22	Approaching	21
23	Go	21
24	Live	21
25	Heard	21
26	Make	21
27	Introducing	20
28	Approach	20
29	Give	19
30	Called	19

31	Got	17
32	Bring	16
33	Put	16
34	Think	15
35	Taken	15
36	Stand	15
37	Approaches	14
38	Craving	14
39	Favor	14
40	Ask	14

41	Saying	13
42	Find	13
43	Thinking	13
44	Seem	13
45	Take	13
46	Please	13
47	Given	12
48	Meaning	12
49	Sit	12
50	Become	12

Top 50 Nouns

Rank	Unique Words	Number of Occurrences
1	Lord	103
2	Man(men)	101
3	Faith	97
4	Peace	96
5	Nescience	94
6	Magnus	90
7	One	87
8	King	83
9	Lady	82
10	Friend	81

11	Dear	80
12	Master	76
13	Two	75
14	World(s)	75
15	Goddess	72
16	Vishnu	63
17	Upanishad	59
18	Intuition	56
19	Hail	55
20	Ascetic	52

21	Three	48
22	Indeed	44
23	Anger	42
24	Monk	39
25	Command(s)	39
26	Skullman	39
27	Way	37
28	Good	34
29	Victory	33
30	Four	32

31	Dispassion	32
32	Child	31
33	Six	31
34	Sir	30
35	Liberation	29
36	Interlude	27
37	Chief	27
38	Five	27
39	M’lord	27
40	Wisdom	27

41	Intuition’s	27
42	Water(s)	27
43	Moon	26
44	Charlatans	26
45	Nature	26
46	Mother	26
47	Charades	26
48	Mind	26
49	Hypocrite	25
50	Heart	25