This is volume one of the Sir Edwin Arnold Collection of works, which collects his two main works, The Light of Asia, and his translation of The bhagavad gita. The literary task which he set before him was the interpretation in English verse of the life and philosophy of the East. His chief work with this object is The Light of Asia, or The Great Renunciation, a poem of eight books in blank verse which was translated into various languages such as Hindi (tr. by Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla). In it, in Arnold's own words, he attempted 'by the medium of an imaginary Buddhist votary to depict the life and character and indicate the philosophy of that noble hero and reformer, Prince Gautama of India, founder of Buddhism'.In "The Song Celestial" Sir Edwin produced a well-known poetic rendering of the sacred Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita.