Kalidasa

Shakuntala stops to look back at Dushyanta, Raja Ravi
Varma (1848-1906)
Kalidasa, (flourished 5th century ce, India),
Sanskrit poet and dramatist, probably the greatest
Indian writer of any epoch. The six works identified
as genuine are the dramas Abhijnanashakuntala (“The
Recognition of Shakuntala”), Vikramorvashi (“Urvashi
Won by Valour”), and Malavikagnimitra (“Malavika and
Agnimitra”); the epic poems Raghuvamsha (“Dynasty of
Raghu”) and Kumarasambhava (“Birth of the War God”);
and the lyric “Meghaduta” (“Cloud Messenger”).
As with most
classical Indian authors, little is known about
Kalidasa’s person or his historical relationships.
His poems suggest but nowhere declare that he was a
Brahman (priest), liberal yet committed to the
orthodox Hindu worldview. His name, literally
“servant of Kali,” presumes that he was a Shaivite
(follower of the god Shiva, whose consort was Kali),
though occasionally he eulogizes other gods, notably
Vishnu.
A Sinhalese
tradition says that he died on the island of Sri
Lanka during the reign of Kumaradasa, who ascended
the throne in 517. A more persistent legend makes
Kalidasa one of the “nine gems” at the court of the
fabulous king Vikramaditya of Ujjain. Unfortunately,
there are several known Vikramadityas (Sun of
Valour—a common royal appellation); likewise, the
nine distinguished courtiers could not have been
contemporaries. It is certain only that the poet
lived sometime between the reign of Agnimitra, the
second Shunga king (c. 170 bce) and the hero of one
of his dramas, and the Aihole inscription of 634 ce,
which lauds Kalidasa. He is apparently imitated,
though not named, in the Mandasor inscription of
473. No single hypothesis accounts for all the
discordant information and conjecture surrounding
this date.
An opinion accepted
by many—but not all—scholars is that Kalidasa should
be associated with Chandra Gupta II (reigned c.
380–c. 415). The most convincing but most
conjectural rationale for relating Kalidasa to the
brilliant Gupta dynasty is simply the character of
his work, which appears as both the perfect
reflection and the most thorough statement of the
cultural values of that serene and sophisticated
aristocracy.
Tradition has
associated many works with the poet; criticism
identifies six as genuine and one more as likely
(“Ritusamhara,” the “Garland of the Seasons,”
perhaps a youthful work). Attempts to trace
Kalidasa’s poetic and intellectual development
through these works are frustrated by the
impersonality that is characteristic of classical
Sanskrit literature. His works are judged by the
Indian tradition as realizations of literary
qualities inherent in the Sanskrit language and its
supporting culture. Kalidasa has become the
archetype for Sanskrit literary composition.
In drama, his
Abhijnanashakuntala is the most famous and is
usually judged the best Indian literary effort of
any period. Taken from an epic legend, the work
tells of the seduction of the nymph Shakuntala by
King Dushyanta, his rejection of the girl and his
child, and their subsequent reunion in heaven. The
epic myth is important because of the child, for he
is Bharata, eponymous ancestor of the Indian nation
(Bharatavarsha, “Subcontinent of Bharata”). Kalidasa
remakes the story into a love idyll whose characters
represent a pristine aristocratic ideal: the girl,
sentimental, selfless, alive to little but the
delicacies of nature, and the king, first servant of
the dharma (religious and social law and duties),
protector of the social order, resolute hero, yet
tender and suffering agonies over his lost love. The
plot and characters are made believable by a change
Kalidasa has wrought in the story: Dushyanta is not
responsible for the lovers’ separation; he acts only
under a delusion caused by a sage’s curse. As in all
of Kalidasa’s works, the beauty of nature is
depicted with a precise elegance of metaphor that
would be difficult to match in any of the world’s
literatures.
The second drama,
Vikramorvashi (possibly a pun on vikramaditya),
tells a legend as old as the Vedas (earliest Hindu
scriptures), though very differently. Its theme is
the love of a mortal for a divine maiden; it is well
known for the “mad scene” (Act IV) in which the
king, grief-stricken, wanders through a lovely
forest apostrophizing various flowers and trees as
though they were his love. The scene was intended in
part to be sung or danced.
The third of
Kalidasa’s dramas, Malavikagnimitra, is of a
different stamp—a harem intrigue, comical and
playful, but not less accomplished for lacking any
high purpose. The play (unique in this respect)
contains datable references, the historicity of
which have been much discussed.
Kalidasa’s efforts
in kavya (strophic poetry) are of uniform quality
and show two different subtypes, epic and lyric.
Examples of the epic are the two long poems
Raghuvamsha and Kumarasambhava. The first recounts
the legends of the hero Rama’s forebears and
descendants; the second tells the picaresque story
of Shiva’s seduction by his consort Parvati, the
conflagration of Kama (the god of desire), and the
birth of Kumara (Skanda), Shiva’s son. These stories
are mere pretext for the poet to enchain stanzas,
each metrically and grammatically complete,
redounding with complex and reposeful imagery.
Kalidasa’s mastery of Sanskrit as a poetic medium is
nowhere more marked.
A lyric poem, the
“Meghaduta,” contains, interspersed in a message
from a lover to his absent beloved, an extraordinary
series of unexcelled and knowledgeable vignettes,
describing the mountains, rivers, and forests of
northern India.
The society
reflected in Kalidasa’s work is that of a courtly
aristocracy sure of its dignity and power. Kalidasa
has perhaps done more than any other writer to wed
the older, Brahmanic religious tradition,
particularly its ritual concern with Sanskrit, to
the needs of a new and brilliant secular Hinduism.
The fusion, which epitomizes the renaissance of the
Gupta period, did not, however, survive its fragile
social base; with the disorders following the
collapse of the Gupta Empire, Kalidasa became a
memory of perfection that neither Sanskrit nor the
Indian aristocracy would know again.
Edwin Gerow