After a sleepless night spent longing for his absent wife Sita, Rama, god-prince and future king, surveyed his army camps on a clear autumn morning and spied a white goose playing in a pond of lotus flowers. Seeing this radiant creature who so resembled his lost beloved, he began to plead with the bird to send her a message of love and fierce revenge. This is the setting of the Hamsasandesa ("A Message for the Goose"), a sandesa or "messenger poem" by the medieval saint-poet and philosopher Vedantedesika, a seminal figure for the Srivaisnava religious community of Tamil Nadu, South India, and a master poet in Sanskrit and Tamil. In The Flight of Love, Steven P. Hopkins situates Vedantedesika's Sanskrit sandesa within the wider comparative context of South Indian and Sri Lankan literatures. He traces the significance of messenger poetry in the construction of sacred landscapes in pre-modern South Asia and explores the ways the piece re-envisions the pan-Indian story of Rama and Sita, rooting his protagonists in a turbulent emotional world where separation, overwhelming desire, and anticipated bliss, are written into the living particularized bodies of lover and beloved, in the "messenger" goose and in the landscapes surrounding them. Hopkins's translation of the Hamsasandesa into fluid American English verse is framed by a comparative introduction, including an extended essay on translation, detailed linguistic notes, and an expanded thematic commentary that weaves together traditional religious interpretations of the poem with themes of contemporary literary relevance. Equally the work of a scholar and a poet, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian studies, comparative religion, and Indian literatures.

Millipedes are common components of the leaf-litter fauna of most terrestrial environments. The Biology of Millipedes is the first single-volume review of this important group and covers their ecology, behaviour, physiology, and evolution.

In this companion volume to Singing the Body of God (Oxford 2002), Steven P. Hopkins has translated into contemporary American English verse poems written by the South Indian Srivaisnava philosopher and saint-poet Venkatesa (c. 1268-1369). These poems, in three different languages - Sanskrit, Tamil, and Maharastri Prakrit -- composed for one particular Hindu god, Vishnu Devanayaka, the "Lord of Gods" at Tiruvahindrapuram, form a microcosm of the saint-poet's work. They encompass major themes of Venkatesa's devotional poetics, from the play of divine absence and presence in the world of religious emotions; the "telescoping" of time past and future in the eternal "present" of the poem; love, human vulnerability and the impassible perfected body of god; to the devotional experience of a "beauty that saves" and to what Hopkins terms the paradoxical coexistence of asymmetry and intimacy of lover and beloved at the heart of the divine-human encounter. Moreover, these poems form not only a thematic microcosm, but a linguistic one embracing all three of the poet's working languages. Like the remembered world of Proust's Combray in the taste of madeleine dipped in tea, or Blake's World in a Grain of Sand, we taste and see, in this one particular place, and in this one particular form of Vishnu, various protean forms and powers of the divine, and trace a veritable summa of theological, philosophical, and literary designs.
Each translated poem forms a chapter in itself, has its own individual short Afterword, along with detailed linguistic and thematic notes and commentary. The volume concludes, for comparative reasons, with a translation of Tirumankaiyalvar's luminous cycle of verses forDevanayaka from the Periyatirumoli.
As much an argument as an anthology, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian studies, comparative religion, and Indian literatures.

In this companion volume to Singing the Body of God (Oxford 2002), Steven P. Hopkins has translated into contemporary American English verse poems written by the South Indian Srivaisnava philosopher and saint-poet Venkatesa (c. 1268-1369). These poems, in three different languages - Sanskrit, Tamil, and Maharastri Prakrit -- composed for one particular Hindu god, Vishnu Devanayaka, the "Lord of Gods" at Tiruvahindrapuram, form a microcosm of the saint-poet's work. They encompass major themes of Venkatesa's devotional poetics, from the play of divine absence and presence in the world of religious emotions; the "telescoping" of time past and future in the eternal "present" of the poem; love, human vulnerability and the impassible perfected body of god; to the devotional experience of a "beauty that saves" and to what Hopkins terms the paradoxical coexistence of asymmetry and intimacy of lover and beloved at the heart of the divine-human encounter. Moreover, these poems form not only a thematic microcosm, but a linguistic one embracing all three of the poet's working languages. Like the remembered world of Proust's Combray in the taste of madeleine dipped in tea, or Blake's World in a Grain of Sand, we taste and see, in this one particular place, and in this one particular form of Vishnu, various protean forms and powers of the divine, and trace a veritable summa of theological, philosophical, and literary designs.
Each translated poem forms a chapter in itself, has its own individual short Afterword, along with detailed linguistic and thematic notes and commentary. The volume concludes, for comparative reasons, with a translation of Tirumankaiyalvar's luminous cycle of verses forDevanayaka from the Periyatirumoli.
As much an argument as an anthology, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian studies, comparative religion, and Indian literatures.

Springtails (Collembola) are the most common and widespread insects in terrestrial ecosystems and important indicators of environmental pollution (ecotoxicology). This comprehensive work is the first single-volume review of the biology of this group in the English language this century and covers the insects' classification, behaviour, physiology, evolution, and response to pollution. An extensive reference section with more than 2500 entries is included as well as a complete list of Collembola genera, a list of ecotoxicologically relevant field and laboratory studies of Collembola, and a regional checklist.