Bhanu is probably the most famous Sanskrit poet that no one today has ever heard of. His Bouquet of Rasa and River of Rasa, both composed in the early sixteenth century, probably under the patronage of the Nizam of Ahmadnagar in western India, attracted the attention of the most celebrated commentators in early modern India. Some of the greatest painters of Mewar and Basohli vied to turn his subtle poems into pictures. And his verses were prized by poets everywhere: Abu al-Fazl, the preeminent scholar at Akbar s court, translated them into Persian, and, Kshetrayya, the great Andhra poet of...