The first English translation of a thousand-year-old story of Krishna and his wife Satyabhama, retold by the most famous court poet of the Vijayanagara Empire.

Legend has it that the sixteenth-century Telugu poet Nandi Timmana composed Theft of a Tree, or Pārijātāpaharaṇamu, to help the wife of Krishnadevaraya, king of the south Indian Vijayanagara Empire, win back her husband’s affections. Timmana based his work on a popular millennium-old Krishna tale.

Theft of a Tree recounts how Krishna stole the wish-granting pārijāta tree from the garden of Indra, king of the gods. Krishna takes the tree to please his favorite wife, Satyabhama, who is upset when he gifts his chief queen a single divine flower. After battling Indra, he plants the pārijāta for Satyabhama—but she must perform a rite temporarily relinquishing it and her husband to enjoy endless happiness.

This is the first English translation of the poem, which prefigures the modern Telugu novel with its unprecedented narrative unity.

An entry way into India’s superb tradition of storytelling, spirituality and lyricism. -- David Chaffetz * Asian Review of Books *
Theft of a Tree is one of the great Telugu classics, a work of stunning wit, playfulness, and passion. The elegant, readable, and careful translation—the first ever into English—captures the melody of the original Telugu, one of the most mellifluous of all South Asian languages. -- David Shulman
Theft of a Tree is wonderful piece, but it’s not what you’re used to—unless you were born five hundred years ago, in a galaxy far, far away…I had a helluva time, rethinking everything, thanks to this book. -- Anthony Madrid * RHINO *

Harshita Mruthinti Kamath is the Visweswara Rao and Sita Koppaka Associate Professor in Telugu Culture, Literatures and History at Emory University. Velcheru Narayana Rao is the Krishnadevaraya Emeritus Professor of Languages and Cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.