My interest in Ramapanivada, the versatile scholar poet of Kerala was kindled by a symposium held at his birthplace several years back. On that occasion, Panditarajan Kalakkath Govindan Nambair, a great scholar and a scion of the family of Ramapanivada asked me to present a paper on the great author. It was really an honour for me and I readily accepted the invitation. I was very much fascinated by the fact that Ramapanivada, a prolific writer in both Sanskrit and Prakrit had written two plays belonging to the now extinct vithi type of drama. My interest in the plays increased as I learned from Professor A. K. Warder's volume on Indian Kavya literature the possibility of vithi being a street play, though I did not find any evidence supporting this in the plays themselves, which are late examples of the genre. Anyway, I made a presentation on the topic. Later, the paper was published in Vishvesvaranand Indological Journal (Vol. XXVII) under the title "The Vithis of Ramapanivada". The paper was included also in my collection, Sign and Structure, published with the financial assistance of the Govt. of India. Then I had completely forgotten the episode.
This year, I had again an opportunity to go back to Ramapanivada and his playlets as a part of the program of an international reading group which started reading Lilavati vithi. This group, in which eminent scholars like Cezary Galewicz, Lidia Sudyka (both from Poland), Hermann Tieken (Netherlands), and Lidia Wojtczak (U.K.) participated met on every Tuesday for one hour. The group rekindled my interest in Ramapanivada and I toyed with the idea of translating both Candrika and Lilavati to English. To cut a long story short, the present volume is the outcome of my venture. I am greatly indebted to the scholars mentioned above for the brilliant inputs they gave in the course of our discussions. I am indebted to M/s. New Bharatiya Book Corporation, especially Mr. Deepak Jain who took great interest in the work and accepted it for publication. My indebtedness to Professor Cezary Galewicz, my long time friend, who graced the book with his invaluable foreword and who was the catalyst in rekindling my interest in Ramapanivada is too deep to be expressed in words. Thanks are also due to Prof. T. Mini, who helped me in several ways in bringing out this publication.
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