Padmini Rajappa

Padmini Rajappa studied Sanskrit under teachers at the University of Poona and the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, and holds a PhD in history from the University of Bombay. She won the 2014 Sahitya Akademi Award for her English translation of Bana Bhatta's seventh-century Sanskrit prose work Kadambari. In The Clay Toy Cart: Mrchchakatikam, published by Penguin Classics in 2018, she translates Shudraka's ancient Sanskrit drama, bringing textual accuracy informed by a century of advanced scholarship alongside detailed cultural notes on caste, urban society, and legal practices.