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    Glimpses of Kalidasa, Purasu Balakrishnan, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay,

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    Glimpses of Kalidasa, Purasu Balakrishnan, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay,

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    Glimpses of Kalidasa

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    Glimpses of Kalidasa, Purasu Balakrishnan, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay,

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    _ RUPEE.-SERIES és BHAVAN’S BOOK UNIVERSITY Oy KALIDASA x Gsnean FPL ety | ef YX) GENERAL EDITORS _ | K. M. MUNSHI : | | BHARATIYA YIDYA BHAVAN, BOMBAY Stands for Bharatiya Shiksha must ensure that no promising young Indian of oharacter having faith in Bharat and her culture Bharatiya Vidya should be left without modem Cducational equipment by reason merely of want of funds, 2,. Bharatiya Shiksha must be formative more than in- formative, and cannot have for its end mere acquisition of ‘ knowledge. Its legitimate sphere is not only to develop = natural talents but so to shape thei as to enable them to absorb and express the permanent values of Bharatiya Vidya. : t teal 3, Bharatiya Shiksha must take into account not only {2 the full growth of a student's personality but the totality of | his relations and lead him to the highest self-fulfilment of [| which he is capable. : ‘ : See! ! 4. Bharatiya Shiksha must involve at some stage or SESS other an intensive study of Sanskrit or Sanskritic languages and their literature, without excluding, if, so desired, the i Se study of other languages and literature, ancient and modern, ae 4 : , z 24 area 5. The re-integration of Bharatiya Vidya, which is primary object of Bharatiya Shiksha, can only be attained through a study of forces, movements, motives, ideas, forms and art ot creative life-energy through which it has expressed itself in differe! ages as a single rontinuous process. 6. Bharatiya Shiksha must stimulate the student's, power Kee expression, both written and oral, at every stage in accordance ae the highest ideals attained by the great literary masters in the intellectual and moral spheres, 7. The technique of Bharatiya Shiksha must involve— (a) the adoption by the teacher of the Guru setulae which consists in taking a personal interest in the student; inspiring and encouraging him to rechiere distinction in his studies; entering into his life wit a view to form ideals and remove psychological obstacles; and creating in him a spirit of consecration; and (b) the adoption by the student of the Sahitya attitude by the development of— (i) respect for the teacher, (ii) 2 spirit of inquiry, (iii) a spirit of service towards the teacher, the institution, Bharat and Bharatiya Vidya. 8. The ultimate aim of Bharatiya Shiksha is to teach the younger generation to appreciate and live up to the permanent values of Bharatiya Vidya which is flowing from the supreme art of creative life-energy as represented by. Shri Ramachandra, Shri Krishna, Vyasa, Buddha and Mahavira have expressed themselves in| modern times in the life of Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, and Swami Vivekananda, Shri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi. 9. Bharatiya Shiksha while equipping the student with every kind of scientific and technical training must teach the student, not to sacrifice an ancient form or attitude to an unreasoning passion for change; not to retain a form or attitude which in the light of modern times can be replaced by another form of attitude which is a truer and more effective expression of the spirit of Bharatiya Vidya; and to capture the spirit afresh for each generation to Present it to the world. Ss at at Mat: we ag free: | Let noble thoughts come to us from every side Rigveda, 1-89-4 a BHAVAN’S BOOK UNIVERSITY RUPEE SERIES General Editors K. M. MUNSHI R. R. DIWAKAR 70 GLIMPSES OF KALIDASA By PURASU BALAKRISHNAN BHAVAN’S BOOK UNIVERSITY Organising Committee : Luavatt Munsut—Chairman K. K. Bria S. G. NEVATIA J. H. Dave S, RAMAKRISHNAN m BHAVAN’S BOOK UNIVERSITY GLIMPSES OF KALIDASA am, ae ? z 4 By PuRASU BALAKRISHNAN } i 1970 BHARATIYA VIDYA BHAVAN CHOWPATTY : BOMBAY All Rights Reserved First Edition, 1970 Price Re. 1.00 PRINTED IN INDIA By P. H. Raman at Associated Advertisars & Printers, 5, Tardeo Arthur Road, Bombay-34, and Published by S, Ramakrishnan, Executive Secretary, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay-7. GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE The Bhavan’s Book University volumes had rare success. About a million and a quarter volumes have been sold in about eleven years. However, there is an insistent demand for the stray volumes which the Bhavan has issued from time to time at a lower price. In order to meet this de- mand, it has been decided to issue the new One- Rupee Book University Series side by side with the Book University Series, I hope this new One-Rupee Series will have the same good fortune which the other Series had, of being useful to those who are interested in the fundamental values of Indian Culture, and of teaching out to a wider audience, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chowpatty Road, Bombey-7, K. M. Munsui Vijaya Dashami ; September 28, 1963. The words of a genius are not born to die; their immediate work upon mankind fulfilled, they may seem to be torpid; but at each fresh shower of intelligence Time pours upon their students, they prove their immor- tal race: they revive, they spring from the dust of great libraries; they bud, they flower, they fruit, they seed, from generation to generation, and from age to age. CHarLes READE To My sister Srimati VIDYA SHANKAR ‘Veena-player And biographer of Syama Sastri ‘e eaigetoagis: FOREWORD I have heard teenagers pursuing a course of scienti- fie studies in a college remark: What use is a study of literature; All hail to the glorious goddess of science and technology. With the passage of time, men have been turning for their solace and comfort to the eternal productions of art and literature. The naked blinding truth of science may fascinate but the tender diffused light of art and literature alone can make for peace. Truly therefore did Goethe remark not merely on Sakuntala but on the whole realm of art when he said: “And all by which the soul is charmed enraptured feasted, fed.” Purasu Balakrishnan hailing from a cultured family from the South is a doctor, paediatric teacher and medi- cal man. In his professional encounters he is quite often at grips with items that make all the difference between. life and death. This close association with life draws him all the more to the enduring values of art and literature. Three essays make up this small book on the Glimpses of Kalidasa. In the first the writer takes us into the question of the claims of Kalidasa as a National poet and a world poet. In these days when western society is filled with many that are as conversant with Sanskrit as their Eastern brethren, Kalidasa’s claim for being regarded as a world poet will not merely rest on translations. Nor need we fear anything as even a crude translation of a badly edited text of Sakuntala itself eli- cited high praise from a fellow craftsmen and master of words. We miss that most desired thing in Kalidasa—the charm that would have been there if some Boswell had given a full length account of his life. But a close study of his similies will startle us with knowledge that seems to be more valuable than a drab biographical account. The unheard melodies emanating from these should be more than recompense for the heard ones which we miss. The last essay might seem superficial from a certain point of view: the parting scene is all that is common between the Cherry Orchard and Sakuntala. But there is a deeper meaning—Kalidasa’s treatment of nature. To one who was steeped in the philosophy of the Upanishads, nature is much more than what it was and is to the English poets, except perhaps for Wordsworth, who occa- sionally came upon something sublimer. This grand conception of everything in nature is the resultant of a lived philosophy that regards whatever there is in this universe as instinct with the Divine. Perhaps no better artistic exposition of the truth of the mantra—Ishavasya- midam sarvam—exists than that of Kalidasa. K. M, MUNSHI. PREFACE A few acknowledgments with respect to the papers which make up this little volume may be made. ___ “Kalidasa’s Similes” appeared originally in the Tamil Journal “Bharata Mani”, and subsequently in my book “Tamizhum Angilamum”, published by Tamil Puthaka- layam of Madras in 1947. Its English translation, done by me, appeared in “Triveni” in 1944, and again more Completely in “Bhavan’s Journal” in 1963. “The Cherry Orchard and Abhignana Sakuntalam” was completely re- written by me in English so that it became altogether different from my original Tamil article which appeared in “Swadesamitran” and later in English translation in “Triveni” in 1940. The re-written article (in its present shape) appeared in “The Literary Half Yearly” of Mysore in 1969. “Kalidasa, a National and World Poet,” originally Written in English, appears here in print for the first time. The translations from Sanskrit in this book, when Not otherwise indicated, are by the author. The very name of Kalidasa makes music to my ears. It is a compact of the glowing hours of youth and the quest for beauty, the best of racial memories and the highest of mankind’s aspirations. I am grateful to the revered Kulapatiji, Dr. K.M. Munshi, and my good friend, Sri S. Ramakrishnan of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, for the benefit of their satsang which has enabled me to realize, despite the shadows of the prison house, the early gleam that cometh from afar. Purasu BALAKRISHNAN (Prof. S. Balakrishnan) CONTENTS Kalidasa, a National and World Poet 7 we 1 Kalidasa’s Similes . o . . + 19 The Cherry Orchard and Abhignana Sakuntalam .. 32 ee 1 KALIDASA, A NATIONAL AND WORLD POET Sixteen centuries ago, in the spacious days of King Vikramaditya, in the ‘radiant bit of heaven’ (faq : afara- wvsiay) that was the city of Ujjayini, arose Kalidasa; and the siren strains of his melody rose and swept the dis- tant lands in translations—pratisabda (sfaqrez) or echoes —even like the echoes of the lion’s roar which, he says in Vikramorvasiya, issuing forth from the mountain-cave, smites the elephants in the forest (aqarrarvafaatt wfracdsft @tfiraft arm). In Ujayini the most dis- cerning audience that could have gathered anywhere on the earth at that time witnessed Abhijfiana+Sakuntalam (Sakuntala and the Ring) and at once made Sakuntala their own, The nation’s acceptance subsequently cry- stallized in the verse: RAY Aes Wt Ta WAT THAT | (The crown of literature is the play, Queen among plays is Sakuntala.) When, after several centuries, Europe discovered. Sakuntala and the Ring, Goethe, the greatest living poet of Europe at that time, like Dushyanta discovering the lost ring, fell in love with Sakuntala, apostrophizing her, ‘and finding all heaven and earth in her. He said: “Wouldst thou the young year’s blossoms and the fruits of its decline, And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed ? Wouldst thou the earth and heaven in one sole name combine ? I name thee, O Sakuntala, and all at once is said.” Goethe also came upon Megha-Duta in translation, and wrote, “The first meeting with a work such as this is always an event in our lives,” and he further wrote the following epigram on it: “What more pleasant could man wish? Sakuntala, Nata, these one must kiss; And Megha-Duta, the cloud messenger, Who would not send him to a soul sister?” Arthur Ryder, a great lover of Kalidasa, said of Sakuntala, “Though lovely women walk the world to-day By tens of thousands, there is none so fair In all that exhibition and display With her most perfect beauty to compare—” because, he says, it is a most perfect beauty of soul no Jess than of outward form. As surely as Germany leads the western world in music, as surely as Russia leads the world in the novel, as surely as England leads the world in drama, so surely does India lead the world in poetry, and this is due to the triad of Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa. The wonder is that after the first two mighty, towering poets, a third arising in a sophisticated, sensous, and material world similar to ours of to-day, proved worthy enough to be named after them. If in India we want to name a third poet after Valmiki and Vyasa, it will have to be Kalidasa not even Kamban or Tulsi Das. For Kalidasa has a unique personality of his own, quite distinct from Val- 2 miki’s and Vyasa’s, while Kamban and Tulsi Das are but Valmiki with a difference. Kalidasa’s poetry, though the off-spring of Valmiki and Vyasa, carrying their ancient seed, is yet permeated by a new, vital breath, while the differences of Kamban and Tulsi Das from Valmiki are but the expression of the differences in time and space which witnessed the later poets who but. followed the ex- ample of Valmiki. Kalidasa has a mansion of his own, not covered by the two elder poets’ domains. He, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out with profound insight, is the representative of a different epoch which had not found expression through the two elder poets, a sensuous and material epoch distinct from their moral and intellectual epochs. It is note-worthy also that Kali- dasa, writing in the same language as Valmiki and Vyasa, wields a style which, while having their simpli- city and dignity, and the grandeur characteristic of Sanskrit, is still different from theirs,.with a different rolling sonorousness and an architectonic build-up. It was but natural then that the classical Sanskrit poets, for whom Valmiki and Vyasa were altogether out of reach, finding themselves in a different literary milieu and in a different world, called Kalidasa their teacher (afageTE. ) Kalidasa is certainly a poet’s poet. Just as in Vikrama and Urvasi, the words of Urvasi, written on a birch-leaf (asiga) were wafted to the king and to the palace, so have Kalidasa’s words, phrases, and whole stanzas been wafted over India by succeeding generations of poets—so strongly influenced were they by him— through inscriptions on copper plates, pillars, stones and cave-walls. Such epigraphical echoes, borrowings, and 3 7 reproductions from Kalidasa range, as has been shown by epigraphists like Kielhorn and Buhler and others, from the second century A.D. to the fifteenth century A.D., from Kathiawar in the west to Dacca in the east, from Kurukshetra in the north to the Than- javur in the south, and even as far as Cambodia. Such are the inscriptions in the Mattepad plates of Damodara- varman, Anandagotra (V century A.D.), Abhona plates of Sankaragana, Katacchuri (VI c. A.D.), Kiram plates of ParameSvara Varman, Pallava (VII c, A.D.), Sinna- manir plates of Rajasimha, Pandya (IX c. A.D.), Arum- baka plates of Badapa, Calukya (X ec. A.D.), the Orissa plates of Vidyadhara-bhafija-deva (XII c. A.D.), and the Dandepalli plates of Vijayabhitpati, Vijayanagara “(XV c. A.D.). And such are the Allahabad pillar in- scription of Samudra Gupta (IV c. A.D.), Pahladpur pillar inscription of Sigupala (IV c. A.D.), Mandasor in- scription of Yagodharman done by Vatsabhatti (V c. A.D.), Junagadh inscriptions of Skandagupta (V c. A.D.), Mahakita pillar inscription of Mangalega Calukya (VI c. A.D.), Bodhgaya inscription of Mahanaman (VI e. A.D.), Aihole inscriptions of PulakeSin, Calukya done by Ravikirti (VIL c. A.D.), and the Rewah inscrip- tion of Malayasinha Cedi (XII c. A.D.). Such are again found in the Nagarjuni and Barabar Hill Caves inscriptions of Anantavarman, Maukhari (VI c. A.D.), in the niches of Pallava RajasimheSvara temple in Kajici- puram (VII c. A.D.), the Huli stone inscription of Vikramaditya VI (XI c. A.D.), and the Mount Abu in- scription of Tejahpala (XII c. A.D.). ‘Thus Kalidasa’s influence on the court-poets and other writers, in the various periods of history, is mir- “rored in epigraphical passages. Some of these poets 4 have paid him the greatest tribute of quoting his slokas (stanzas) in toto. One full line of his sloka, aafefagaeitt sareratanfaa, is reproduced verbatim in the Mahakita inscription of MangaleSa. In the Huli inscription of the western Calukya king, Vikramaditya VI, the opening gloka of Raghu-Vamsa, anratfaat arait arrrferad i ome: frat Fe ordcfeeterd 11 has been reproduced entirely. And-in an inscription from Rajputana (vide Epigraphia Indica XI, p. 65, as stated in Sri C, Sivaramamurti’s book), the mazgala- Sloka or invocatory verse of Sakuntalam is incorporated completely: ae fafigd wat i ie fee atrecen ar er oe Fe Not only verbal felicities and poetical ideas but even the type of poetical thinking has been set by Kalidasa for his successors. Thus, in his Megha-Duta he created a new genre of duta-kavya (messenger-poems or mess- age-poems). These are lyrical love-poems or love-letters where love is recollected and anticipated in separation, half in tranquillity and half in flame. These messages give full play to the personality of the lover; and the Jove-in-recollection is wedded not only to its object, but also to external nature, is moved not only by erotic springs but also by an exquisite tenderness and pity for the beloved. There are now, probably in all the litera- tures of India, and certainly in Sanskrit and Tamil, and also in Sinhalese, several poems of such love-messages sent through the moon-light, the wind, the mind, a swan, a peacock, a koel, a parrot, a bee—messengers as diverse as the poets’ imagination can make them. Some of these love-messages speed from the love of woman to the love of God. It was a great poet of the XII cen- tury, Jayadeva, who gave exquisite utterance to the love of Krishna and Radha, that called Kalidasa kavi-kula-guru or the poets’ poet. The line of poets, descending from Kalidasa, through Jayadeva, extends down to Rabindranath Tagore whose poetical tempera- ment, habit and manner, all transparently bear the im- press of Kalidasa. In Germany, Schiller who tried to adapt Sakuntalam to the German stage and found it not possible, used the motif of Megha-Duta, namely a mes- sage through a cloud, in his play, Maria Stuart, where the captive queen sends her greetings to the land of her birth through the clouds in words that clearly recall Megha- Duta, while Goethe modelled the prologue to his famous Faust on the prologue to Sakuntalam. Kalidasa is not only a poet’s poet but also a painter’s poet and a sculptor’s poet. His similes and descriptions, long and short, are the painter’s art and the sculptor’s art transferred to letters. On painted wall and chiselled stone Kalidasa’s influence is seen all over India. A full account of this is given in Sri Sivaramamurti’s fascinat- ing book, Sculpture inspired by Kalidasa. “The series of Bhutesar-rail pillars with Yaksis, (II century A.D.),” he says, “appears as though carved to illustrate the amorous reminiscences of the Yakga in Megha-Dita”. The dancer’s pose, described in Mélavikignimitra (Act II verse 6) has also been rendered into stone there. One verse from Megha-Duta, (ii, 42), he says, “has no better explanation than that offered by the master-piece from 6 Ellora (VIII c. A.D.) which an unknown sculptor of the Réastrakiita realm has carved and left as his appreciative offering at the altar of Kalidasa’s poesy.” He again says, “The artist at Ajanta (Vc. A.D.) has immortalized the kanthaSlesa or neck-embrace described in Megha- Duta (i, 3) and Raghu-Vamsa (XV, 56)”, and declares also, “The Elephanta and Ellora caves are directly in- spired by Kalidasa’s iconographic material.” Some of the other ocular renderings of Kalidasa’s pen-pictures are to be seen in the marble rails of the Amaravati pillar (II c. A.D.), the Gupta sculpture at Udayagiri (VI c. A.D.), the Pallava cave at Tiruchirapalli (VII c. A.D.), the Pallava sculpture at Kaveripakkam (VII c. A.D.), the Pala sculpture at Dacca (X c. A.D.), and in the Cola temple at Thanjavur (XI c.A.D.). It may be that some or several of these paintings and sculptures are the ex- pression of the same cultural pattern on canvas or stone or rock by artists expressing themselves with the brush or chisel as are the poems of Kalidasa through the me- dium of words. But what if? It will still be a great thing for a poet to express the nation’s images and sym- pols in words which the painter and the sculptor may well envy. A genius, garnering thus a nation’s whole cultural heritage in his works, himself becomes his age. Kalidasa’s plays give ample scope for music and dancing. Any votary of Bharata Natya (classical Indian dance) will thrill to the tribute that the poet pays this art in Mélavikagnimitra through the dance-master, Ganadasa: aarnfrenraa “WaT: aed Al aTAT eaiagrareaaet cag frat fear 1. 7 wet farmer agate aATCAy U1 (Sages consider this an offering of visual delight to the gods. The masculine and feminine aspects of this have been differentiated within Himself by Rudra (Siva). It renders aesthetically the manifold behaviour of peo- ple, arising from their diverse dispositions. Truly, it is a bond of union between people of varying tastes.) Perhaps the best exposition of the nature of Bharata Natya is to be found in Parivrajika’s appreciation of Malavika’s dance: aatwatferaat: afar: arent: Tea SPT TY | arat art date faraerraer: & UT (The limbs look like incarnate words. The steps declare the beat of the song. There is no dancer—there is only the Feeling. The hands move flowingly with the gestures. Expression chases fleeting expression, while the essential mood remains the same.) ‘We have so far considered Kalidasa as the poet of the aesthete. He is also a patriot’s poet—a national poet in the narrower sense of the term. His feeling for India we will not call patriotism. It was more emanci- pated than patriotism. He never apostrophized India or Bharat. But he knew and loved India. He dwelt loving- ly on her charms of body and soul. India lay before him with her mighty mountains and humble hills, her great mother-rivers and her little streams, her rolling fields spreading from the Himalayas to the seas (arerqafertt ), 8 si'emeevue. ait) her birds and beasts, her trees and every little flower, her populous cities and luxurious palaces, her tranquil and friendly and godly hermit-groves, her carved and painted and drum-resounding temples, her lovely and stead-fast women, her gentle and gracious men, her heroes and her sages, her (even then) long history and great learning, philosophy and wisdom, and he gathered. them all in one sweeping embrace of love, and he gave us the quintessence of them all in visions of beauty that shine for ever. To him it was given, poetically and spi- ritually, to see these visions as one unity.’ In his Megha-Duta which describes the various re- gions of India from the Vindhya Hills to the Himalayas, he exhorts the cloud to visit Ujjayini, although the city does not lie in its way. And then he lingers over the description of the city, its river Sipra, and its temple of Maha-kala. “Why?” we ask, and then we say that he loved Ujjayini, that he had probably lived there. If then we stop to put the same question, “Why?” to his writing the poem itself in the way that he did, even granting the more intimately personal reasons that might have prevailed, we get the answer that he loved all the places that he has described in the poem (just as he loved Ujjayini, maybe more intimately) and that he loved to describe them even as he loved to describe Uj- jayini. In his Raghu-Vamsa he went a step further. He did for India what Virgil did for Rome with his Aeneid, namely singing the glory of the country and adding to the glory of the ruling kings by invoking the glory of the country that was and the glory of the kings that were, And he did something even more. The rise and 9 fall of the dynasty of Raghu symbolises the rise and fall of the immemorial ideal of India. Kalidasa fixed his gaze on the purity, simplicity and serenity of India’s past age of self-control and spiritual striving, and point- ed, in this poem, to the dangers of abject self-enjoyment and sheer material magnificence, Kalidasa’s descriptions, in Raghu-Vamsa, of Rama’s aerial journey from Lanka (Ceylon) to Ayodhya (Oudh) in the thirteenth canto, and of Raghu’s triumphant mili- tary progress across the length and breadth of the sub- continent in the fourth canto also bear witness to Kali- dasa’s love of India and his vision of India as spreading from the Himalayas to the land’s end. Kalidasa is not only the land’s poet but also the people’s poet. The iridescent soap-bubble of luxury and wealth and high life is at once pricked naively by the simple hermit youth from the forest, in Sakuntalam, re- marking when he steps into the palace, “These pleasure- seeking foll strike me as funny—as oil-smeared men ap- pear to those that have bathed, as the scheming appear to the guileless, as sleeping men to those that are up early, as fettered slaves to free men.” aerate Tard: affairs sag aa TTT qafra aorfisiafie Gaefenrnath u A few simple rustic words, they are completely de- vastating. The police-chief’s joke against the fisher- man’s calling, in the same play, is met by the fisher-man with noble, yet simple words. The common identity of mankind is repeatedly illumined in Kalidasa’s works, In them the essential simple human feelings attain an added elevation, tenderness, beauty, and luminosity— 10 not just power or ferocity or turbulence as they do in the hands of the-great writers of the western world. Thus the father’s love for his daughter seems to be shown forth in a nobler light, acquiring a further nobility from the sage, when the great Kanwi, in Sakuntalam, discovers his kinship, in spite of his austerity and discipline, with the common house-holder, and sympathizes with the or- dinary father when he has to part from his daughter in marriage: (Sakuntala must go to-day; I miss her now at heart; I dare not speak a loving word Or choking tears will start. My eyes are dim with anxious thought; Love strikes me to the life: And yet I strove for pious peace— I have no child, no wife. What must a father feel, when come The pangs of parting from his child at home ? —Ryder’s translation.) Further the stern beauty of the father’s duty in doing this is again brought out similarly’ in’ Kanwa’s subsequent utterances. The effect on the common rea- der or the common spectator of the play is precisely as if he gets a nobler conception of his own simple feelings because he is in the company of the great sage Kanwa. One more instance of this quality of Kalidasa, to show with what minute strokes, and only by suggestion, i he can achieve this ennobling effect will not be out of place. The coming of the child Parvati to Himavan’s house, says Kalidasa, imparted gladness and sanctity to Himavan, her father: mame frat duferaniag fafeaer art: 1 aera fire att car a gare frafrart i [As the bright flame to the lamp, as Ganga to the Heaven- ward bound, as refined speech to men, so she (Parvati) brought bright sanctity to him.] In the transcendental glow of the similes shine the nobility and beauty of the transfigured love of man for woman when it is wedded to the eternal sanctities and verities of life, duty and dharma. This habitual transmutation of both words and feelings to something at once lovely marks off Kalidasa, to my mind, from all other poets of the world. People who know Kalidasa only by hearsay will be surprised to be told that he is a philosopher’s poet. In his hands, religion and philosophy turn into poetry. He approached even religion and philosophy through poetry, clutching at truth through beauty, and at Nature through ~ humanity. The one-ness of Siva and Sakti, Man the Force and Woman the Energy, he interprets aesthetically: aratfar aot anrisfaret | were: fret are qracitrcieatt 1 (God Shiva and his mountain bride, Like word and meaning unified, . The world’s great parents, I beseech To join fit meaning to my speech. —Ryder’s translation.) _ The aesthetic receptivity of man is rendered nostal- gically. in terms of the karma (re-birth) theory: 12 ~ 2 iu = warn dea agqies fara gear aga sae sega org: \ wraferatr eo tee u (When man, in spite of physical well-being, becomes perturbed at the sight of beauty or on hearing dulcet melody, maybe he recalls the forgotten faces and voices of his previous births.) The eminent mimamsa philosopher, Kumirila Bhatta, expounding dtmanasthushti (arerrgiz), the voice of conscience, the wisdom of the pure heart, in his Tantravarttika, resorts to the support of Kalidasa’s intuition, voiced through Dushyanta in Sakuntalam: (The motions of a blameless heart decide Of right and wrong, when reason leaves us blind. -Ryder’s translation.) Another great philosopher of the South—Vedanta Desika—quotes both Kalidasa and Kumirila Bhatta in his exposition, of Visishtadvaita. A living man of God to-day, His Holiness the Sankaracharya of Kanchi, in his Tamil discourses, has recourse to Kalidasa for explaining the nature and position of the Smriti in relation to the Srutis or Vedas, taking for this purpose the gloka of Kali- dasa from Raghu-Vamsa: Ter: geanfertig aigemi af atta 1 ant wyierentiasht saftart aplrTaTsag u [The spotless one, the Emperor’s wife, Sudakshina, followed the track of (the cow) Nandini with the dust 13 hallowed by its hooves, like the Smritis tracking the meaning of the Srutis.] We have shown that Kalidasa is a poet’s poet, an artist’s poet, a sculptor’s poet, that he is representative of the patriot, the people and the philosopher. Truly, then, he is a complete national poet. This he is because he is a true son of the soil, deriving sustenance from it, and yielding its distilled essence and fragrance. The roots of our national character (unless we choose to be disinherited) go back to the Upanishads: Saaratad af aferoa sret sq | at watt qositer ar qa: aeaferary 1 [God-enveloped is everything that moves in this mov- ing world. And so will you find enjoyment through re- nunciation and not through possession (i.e. by identify- ing yourself with the pervading God and not with the thing pervaded).] This is uttered in the common langu- age of man, and not in the jargon of a particular reli- gion. The seed of even Kalidasa’s sensuous poetry is in this single verse of the Upanishads, Following the genius of the sages, he intergrated the spirit of beauty and the call of the senses with the deeper issues of life, exhorting that artha (worldly striving) and kama (worldly enjoy- ment) be rooted in dharma, (ethical norms—duty, justice ete.): ariel qearedt ent ca wither: | (apyartha-kamau tasyastim dharma eva manisinah— R.V.I, 25) Above all, Kalidasa is a great, a perfect, literary artist. Tenderness of feeling and richness of fancy, bril- 14 liance of imagination and opulence of imagery, an ex- panding suggestiveness, a subtle minuteness and at the same time a sublime grandeur of description, a marvellous capacity for identification with the life of Nature, an un- rivalled elegance and felicity of expression flowing like a mighty river, a mastery of rhythm and melody that is a spell, a perfect marriage of sound and sense, a pregnant brevity and precision of phrase, an unerring taste and balance in everything, an aroma of youth and beauty like a whiff from heaven, a mellow wisdom and a harmonious integration of all that make human life, a genius that naturally demands and lays hold on its own proper sub- jects, and at the same time a profundity of erudition, a magnificent versatality equally at home in the highest reaches of the drama, the lyric, and the epic, all these give Kalidasa a unique place among the loftiest poets of the world. It is idle to talk of the absence, in Kalidasa’s plays ‘and poems, of aching frustrations, raging perversions, dark wild desires, and hell-fires of mad passions. Shake- speare has these. Vyasa has these. Many lesser poets hhave these. It is misleading to call Kalidasa the Shake-- speare of India although we, in India, long ago, felt flat- tered when Sir William Jones called him so, and sub- sequently Sir Monier-Williams and others. Doing this inevitably draws all our attention to one aspect only of Kalidasa, which again is falsely catapulted to the posi- tion of being his most significant aspect. Having done this, certain western critics damn him with faint praise. Thus G. L. Anderson, in a second introduction (his) fol- lowing Ryder’s own introduction to the latter’s transla- tion of Kalidasa, as though to give a corrective to the translator’s transparent love of the poet, writes, “But in- 15 evitably Kalidasa’s literary efforts were judged by the standards of western literary taste... In this competi- tion” (with the dramas of Shakespeare and of European neo-classicism) ‘“Kalidasa’s plays were relegated to a sub-class of ‘lyrical dramas’ and are comparable to Shake- speare’s As You Like It or The Tempest rather than to Lear, Hamlet, or Othello.” We are amazed by the words that Anderson uses, “Kalidasa’s literary efforts” and “In this competition”. Nobody thinks of calling Homer or Virgil or Dante the Shakespeare of their countries, and yet they have their own lofty place in the realms of gold. The wonder of Kalidasa is that he has his own place as clearly ad they, in the manner that they have theirs, namely as an epic poet, and yet his magnificently filexible and versatile genius displays itself also in the drama to the extent that he has been named with Shakespeare. And Kalidasa is also a supreme lyric poet—his Megha-Duta may well be the longest-sustained, most perfect and lovely lyrical creation of the world. And his Raghu-Vamsa, a classic among classics, is stupendous as an epic in the same man- ner as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, often described as the greatest novel ever written, is stupendous as a novel, while its national significance puts it in the class of Vir- gil’s Aeneid, There is the nation’s tribute to Raghu- Vomsa, % ae TRt | TT (Who on this earth does not find delight in the poet of Raghu-Vamsa ?), on the same level as the better known tribute to Sakuntalam. There is also Kumara-Sambhavam with its sublimity and grandeur of conception and execution in details as well as in the general plan, its pantingly and pathetically hu- man heart-throbs, and its flaming spiritual aspirations. 16 | laa her lelayiag cade aassaa alo It is true, as Keith says, that Kalidasa owes his 8reatest renown abroad to his dramas, and above all to Sakuntalam which he describes as “the finest work in clas- Sical Sanskrit literature.” It is true, as Anderson says, that Kalidasa’s poems will not seem as important to the Western reader as his plays. Both, however, agree as to the significance of his poetry. Keith notices “depth of Poetic insight and feeling”, “loving and graceful detail”, “profound sympathy for the life of Nature and an admir- able power of describing in pregnant brevity the aspects of Indian scenery and life,” and considers, “In the lyric and epic also he (Kalidasa) takes the first place among Indian poets.” Similarly Anderson observes, “They (Ka- lidasa’s poems) nevertheless reveal-his genius as the poet of man in relation to Nature.” It is nevertheless true, as. Ryder says, that “Kalidasa is not as widely appreciated in Europe as he deserves to be.” It is to be expected that “the truly Himalayan bar- rier of language” (as Ryder calls it) and the difficulties arising from the different milieu of Kalidasa prevent a full appreciation of his poems by the western readers. But it would seem that there is also sometimes a lack of the ordinary faculty of understanding, possibly due to pre- conceived ideas. A full consideration of this matter will naturally require a context of its own. Sri Aurobindo, Tagore, Goethe, Schiller, Sir William. Jones, Sir Monier-Williams, H.H. Wilson, MacDonell, Ryder, Schlegel, Humboldt, Levi, Lassen, Fauche, Chezy, Dandin, Bana, Rajasekhara, Sri Krishna Kavi, Padma- gupta, Soddhala, Jayadeva, Govardhanacharya, and many Indian critics and poets who remain anoymous but whose eulogistic bouquets are famous have offered their 17 homage to Kalidasa. We may, however, remind our- selves of Kalidasa’s own admonition: ad: Tear Ye: Toa: - (The wise judge and approve; the fool is led by the think- © ing of others.) A poet of this stature, successor and next only to Valmiki and Vyasa, naturally takes his place among the very greatest poetS of the world. As I said before, Val- miki and Vyasa stand apart from all the other poets of the world in their own way, just as Shakespeare stands apart from all the rest in his own way. Kalidasa was the product of a sensous and material civilization although he transcended it. Like the greatest poets of the world, with the exception of Valmiki and Vyasa, he, like Shake- speare, Homer, Virgil, Dante and Milton, is greatly appre- ciated and enjoyed but is not a vitality and intimately moulding force on the character and lives of the people, which Valmiki and Vyasa alone, apart from the religious prophets of the world, are. Yet Kalidasa is a fountain of sweetness and light, and also of aesthetic beauty and sensuous delight, with his springs in the heart of India, and he dwells in the heart of India, and will dwell there as Jong as all is well with India. = { 2 KALIDASA’S SIMILES In Sanskrit poetry Kalidasa has long been recog- nized as “excelling in similes” (“Upama Kalidasasya”). He recognized likenesses everywhere around him. His mind was full of visions of beauty—of moments of intense sensuous experience—and his similes stand out as perfect. pictures of those impassioned moments. As a dramatist dealing with human problems he falls short of many authors, ancient and modern, but in the rich accumula- tion of such poetic experience he holds a unique place among the poets of the world. - When he stands at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, the richness and enchantment of that moment, as he observes the mingling of the two waters, he com- municates to us in one simile after another: Paerarafafatcasireiaareat \ IT AST Sara wafrcarat froamamt aerated cafe: | wa Tera warfare afro aad wifes: matted | wa YT TeRSa Geeftaqeaaraseat qafasa HoT TeaT_IT Tay | qrarrae feet Tel, Pravarel ATS: “Behold, Seeta, the current of the Ganga broken by the waves of the Jumna. Here are 19 pearls and shining emeralds, thrown into a heap together. There are lotuses, blue and white, strung into wreaths. Here it looks like emigrant flamingoes flapping their wings in the company of dark grey geese. Yonder there we see some pattern like black leaves painted on white sandal- ed ground. Here it looks like the splendour of the moonlight in the dappled shade. There on the waters we see patches of the autumnal sky peering through clouds. And here we behold something like Siva’s form, smeared with ash and adorned with black snakes.” In this we hear the voice of a poet trying to express an inexpressible vision of beauty in terms of simi images. It is characteristic of Kalidasa’s poetic fervour and sincerity. Everything that he saw he seized with all his senses, as if he would hold it in his hands, turn it round and view it in all its aspects and become intimate with it. He had a vivid, prehensile imagination. “Inspired realization,” says Lascelles Abercrombie in his book, The Theory of Poetry, “is perhaps the com- monest, as it is also perhaps the most useful, of the work- ings of genius in poetry,” an&he continues, “there is 2 fine example in the beautiful Indian drama Sakuntala: the chariot of the god Indra driving through "heaven passes over a cloud, and at once the wetted rims of the wheels begin to spin moisture off in sparkling showers. Of course! That is exactly what would happen. Keats has” the very same thing in Endymion but he may have look- ed into Sir William Jones’ version of Kalidasa: f i afarstccnt franafe wet sitecfroift: ‘A silver car, air-borne, 20 Whose silent wheels, fresh-wet from clouds of morn, 7 Sun off a drizzling dew’.”* Another instance of such vivid, vitalizing imagi- nation is Dushyanta’s description of the earth which unrolls: itself below him as he descends from the sky in Indra’s car: torrets firragesaat afet Tear fargit carder: | treason sate wT ATTT: aargheanda wae qed Hodatad | “Rushing through the air what wondrous things I saw! How from the mountains the earth shelved away As the great peaks emerged; wrapt no more ‘In indistinguishable foliage, trees Towered up and showed the stature of their stems. The rivers that were narrowed into threads Of shining silver, broadened their green banks; | And momently grown nearer, all the earth \ Was by some unseen power flung up to me.” (Tr.: Laurence Binyon) Inspired, realization of this kind is perhaps best exemplified in some of Kalidasa’s similes, with lightning- } like brilliance and rapidity of revelation. For in them it displays its power in a concentrated form, the similes being lines and not complete pictures. Rama thus points out to Seeta the bridge that he had built across the sea, while they fly back home in the aerial car: aie womemefarat wag BrereTaTT | SANTIAT TATA STATHAM ‘It is to be noted that the quotation from Abercrombie, the English oct, extends ns fer as this except for the text of Kalidase’s verse in nakrit which has been added to the quotation by the author. 21 “Behold, Vaidehi, the ocean foaming against my bridge which divides it as far as the Malaya mountain, like the milky way dividing the au- tumnal sky.” This simile gives us a true idea of what the ocean with the dividing bridge will look to a spectator from above. The sky is of the same dimension as the ocean and must, with the foamy milky way, appear to specta- tors from below the same as what the ocean with the foam-covered bridge must appear to spectators from above. Similes like this, which are unerring in their judgmént and precision and true to every detail—which are, in short, born of “inspired realization”—are found in profusion in Kalidasa’s poetry. For example, Rama’s description of the sea-shore to Seeta in the same situa- tion: qermstrerea wt Teatro arate tor sarrquiatiada aesTter | “The forests of Tamala and Tali trees on the strand are reduced toa thin dark-blue line by this distance; and owing to this the salt sea looks like an iron wheel with edges rusty.” ‘Thus Kalidasa’s similes are emotional and intellec- tual at the same time. For he imagined things not only like a poet but also like a scientist. His perception was not only sensuous but also disciplined: qa ofrraferrofan fait frat faaeaa | wer sfrrat atraat anetrafira agarrry | “See my beloved, how the sun With beams that o’er the water shake From western skies has now begun A bridge of gold across the lake.” ig (Tr: Ryder) 22 He has observed that the setting sun very near the water's edge is reflected across the entire expanse of the water. And the greatest glory of poetry is achieved in his similes—namely, the achievement of blending numer- ous images and feelings into single short pictures; cory. fee fret aaered aaeait aT eATTAST | otrataad chedirornd qoof: aye: “As on the tree the lightning, On them fell His wrath; He to unknown regions Silent sought His path.” (Tr: R. C. Dutt) This is how he describes the anger of the great god Siva when He was disturbed from His penance by the meddlesome god of Love. In such an apparently simple and unpretentions simile as this, how many pictures and feelings are blended together, the suddenness of Siva’s wrath, the destructive fire of it, His vanish- ing, and its equal suddenness, the total annihila- tion of Manmatha (the god of Love), and the ter- ror and desolation of Parvati! This is the very stuff of poetry inasmuch as Kalidasa transmits to us a spark of his own creativeness and we begin to create these images for ourselves. Suggestion, it is often said, is the soul of poetry. The surpassing suggestiveness of Kalidasa’s similes is a thing which cannot be brought out in translations. But it is such a rich quality of theirs that I must indicate it. Kalidasa thus describes Siva in meditation as He appear- 23 ed to the luckless god of Love who came to aim his shaft at Him: agfeoutrerqarg rere | aTERIT weet Frtahrarahreneaie FATT “Like the deep cloud—dark but silent, Like the ocean—vast but still, Like the flame—by winds unshaken, Dreaded God of dauntless will!” (Tr.: R. C. Dutt) Reading the Sanskrit original one feels something shadowy, something grave and ominous descending on one—something portentous of the coming tragedy. One feels that the cloud may burst at any: moment, that the ocean may soon surge, that the flame may shortly qui- ver. There is a tension, a state of unnaturalness which cannot Jast long, in the air. All the similes are nega- tively stressed. It is borne in upon us by the poet’s diction that the cloud is surcharged with water, that the ocean is potentially turbulent, that the flame is steady only because the vital currents have been sus- pended for a while. Through the poet we ourselves enjoy the privilege of creative experience. Just as in one simile-picture he conjures up other images and feelings which he has in mind, Kalidasa sometimes employs similes to make clear his idea to us. All the knowledge acquired in her previous birth came to young Parvati at the time of her instruction, and Kali- dasa explains it thus: at gamer: wedta vant agate aaahraverare: | ferttarpaaas osafet sretsrarafeenr: 1 24 “As the swans resort to the Ganges when autumn sets in, or as their native lustre returns to the luminous herbs at nightfall, so the know- ledge acquired in her previous life came to Par- vati at the time of instruction.” This is as much as to say that it was quite a natural process—like ‘any of the natural phenomena. Similarly, he employs similes to render clear and convincing paradoxical ideas: Indra, the king of Gods, sues for a mortal’s help to destroy the demons, and this is how his charioteer explains it: wast 8 fee meteor a

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