HISTORY in the ordinary sense of the word is almost unknown in Indian Literature”; so wrote Professor Max Muller, and this is particularly true of those great ones, poets and sages, whose works were written and are still preserved in Sanskrit. The causes of this apparent carelessness may be touched on lightly.
They were, first, the impermanence of the recording materials used and, second, the fundamental Hindu belief in the absolute unimportance of the individual, compared with the world soul. So, very often, little enough remains to tell us what manner of men these were, whose works we still read and admire. They are voices no more; but voices that speak when nearly two thousand years have passed by are not easily denied.
If ever man won immortality by what he thought and wrote rather than what he was, Kalidasa is he. Plays, poems are all that remain; no tomb, no sculptured inscription, no city even, whose proud citizens may point and say, “That is where Kalidasa lived and worked.” So little is known about the great poet- dramatist that it is still disputed as to where or in what century Kalidasa existed. Some, Wilson among, them, believe him to have been one of those “nine gems” which adorned King Vikramaditya’s court, that he lived and wrote about 56 B.C., when Vikramaditya reigned at Ujjayini in Central India; that warlike Vikramaditya who defeated the encroaching hordes of Sakais or Scythians, established the Malavas as a formidable tribe, and inaugurated the glorious Vikram Samvat or era. Except that he gave his royal patronage to several artists and writers, including Amarasimha, compiler of a Kosha or Sanskrit dictionary, very little more is discoverable about this monarch. His obscurity is not, perhaps, very surprising when we remember how the great Samudragupta. who conquered all India from Oxus to Ceylon between A.D. 330 and 380, was not even remembered by name until his identity was slowly pieced together by minutely laborious researches into inscriptions and coins during the last century.
But Bhan Dhaji, and many others, argues that it was not in this King’s reign that the “Indian Shakespeare” penned his Sanskrit masterpieces. They bring strong evidence to prove that his time was during the reign of Chandragupta II, or even of Harshavadhana (both of whom bore the title of Vikramaditya), who ruled in A.D. 606, so that here at once lies latitude of more than six hundred years’ uncertainty as to the Kalidasian period.
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That Kalidasa lived under a King Vikramaditya is vouched for by almost the opening words of his drama, “The Fatal Ring,” wherein the Sutradhana or stage manager says to his wife, the actress: “This, madam, is the numerous and polite assembly of the famed hero, our king Vikramaditya, who is himself an eminent dramatic critic. To-day we are to do justice to Abhijnana-Sakuntalam, the new historical play of Kalidasa.”
Endless discussion has arisen as to which city might claim the poet, all the more confused since he cannot certainly be said to represent the best of a period or school of poets, as did his English prototype, Shakespeare, or to be some
great pioneer of verse, as Chaucer was. Shakespeare belongs to Stratford-on- Avon, and London to Marlowe, Donne and Greene; but where and to who Kalidasa? Legend relates that Kalidasa finally went to Ceylon, there to die at the hands of a courtesan in a brawl such as caused Marlowe’s end, and that King Kumaradasa, his friend, in his grief caused himself to be burned on the pyre by his side; but there are many legends. Despairingly, it has even been suggested that Kalidasa was not one poet alone but several poets, who lived in the reigns of several different kings, each one employing the title which earned such renown. This seems the most improbable theory of all, for throughout Kalidasa’s work runs a potent characteristic, a wonderful, all-surpassing power of description and glorification of Nature, of the beauty of forest, field and sky, stamped with such soulfelt sincerity of expression as can only belong to one man, and that man a prince among poets.
“Wouldst thou the young year’s blossoms and the fruits of its decline
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed,
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Wouldst thou the Earth and Heaven itself in one sole name combine?
I name thee, O Sakuntala! And all at once is said.”
So Rabindranath Tagore, greatest modern poet of India, explains, has Goethe, the master-poet of Europe, summed up his criticism of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala in a single quatrain. . . “In Goethe’s words Sakuntala (Kalidasa’s most famous drama) blends together the young year’s blossoms and the fruits of maturity; it combines heaven and earth in one.” Indeed the theme of all Kalidasa’s work interprets that curious, strong blending of the flesh and the spirit, the erotic and the esoteric, which are so characteristic of his age and creed. Nymphs of unblemished, unimpeded charms disport round yogis of centuries old asceticism. Sometimes the gods, in willful malice or sport, send them direct to tempt sage men from their vows. Clouds embrace rocks, streams the strong roots of trees. All nature is called to Kalidasa’s service to depict in parable the amorous joys of mankind.
The Rajatarangini describes Vikramaditya Sakari (Chandragupta II, another conqueror of the Sakais) as a keen’ patron of learning. It was he who made a poet, one Matrigipta, king of Kashmir for his skill. In none of his works does Kalidasa show any familiarity with Kashmir, yet Kashmir and Dhara too lay claim to the honour of calling him their own poet. But Chandragupta made Ujjayini his capital, and Kalidasa’s poems more than once refer with such affection to this state that it seems more than probable that it was there and under that monarch that he lived. In the Svayamvara (bridegroom selection) scene of his Raghuvamsam, the poet puts into the mouth of a minor character a description of the king of Magadha, who is most probably Chandragupta Vikramaditya (A.D. 380-453):
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“In Maghada he rules, his people’s joy,
Whose blaring wrath burns up his stubborn foes?
Alone he’s Spouse of Earth, though thousand Kings
Usurp the style….”
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(P. D.L.JOHNSTONE.)
Remains then, not for the first time, the poet’s immortal lustre long after the monarch’s temporal power has passed away. Vikramaditya’s countenance, his prowess and his dominion, alike lie forgotten but for disputed rumours of deeds, of a gracious patron of letters: but the work of the man he favoured, the poet he fostered, lives till this day, the delight and wonder alike of East and West, translated in many tongues, performed on the stages of Europe’s foremost capitals. Dr. Keith, famous scholar of Sanskrit literature, ranks Kalidasa higher than Ovid or Propertius, and compares him with Tennyson. Some people, he says, criticising Kalidasa’s Malavikagnimitra, one of his earlier epic poems dealing with the love story of King Agnimitra, deny that he is its author owing to its inferiority to the rest of his work. But such inferiority was merely due to the poet’s youthful inexperience, he explains, just as in Alfred Tennyson’s earlier work. Both were poets “not so much on inspiration and genius as of perfect accomplishment based on a high degree of talent.”
Through the mists of antiquity certain characteristics of Kalidasa the man still , shine through for us. “We may be sure, for example (writes Mary B. Harris in her work Kalidasa, Poet of Nature), that he was a man of culture and acquainted with the fine arts. This we infer from the number and character of his allusions to painting and music, in his lyrics and dramas.” He was a nature student and nature lover, as are most of his race; the great word-artist of nature whose talent is seen at its highest mark in his poem “The Seasons,” which also gives rein to the poet’s other supreme characteristic of intricate eroticism interwoven with nature. In this poem about the six seasons, described in six books of one hundred and fifty-three cantos, the Indian year’s different periods are reviewed in intimate detail, and their inner meaning for lovers clearly explained. The verses abound in parallels; the summer moon fills with jealousy as she beholds the ivory skins of nude, lovely maidens; the wild freshets provoked by the rains embrace the staggering forests which stand on their banks; the clouds swoop down to caress the mountain rocks. Creepers are clinging arms; crimson Asoka flowers, passionate lips; jasmine petals are flashing teeth, and so on.
This eroticism is at its peak in the poem Kumarasambhava, wherein in the eighth canto Kalidasa describes the love transports of Parvati and Siva, together in wedlock after numerous trials and privations. The tremendous ascetic has been won over at last, by Parvati, lovely of body; but not before she has undergone discipline too. Kalidasa’s descriptions here go far beyond anything attempted, tolerated or probably even imagined by Western minds, yet it is of a part with the rest of the poet’s work; supreme, natural consummation of a union well won. It is this poem in particular, to which many spurious stanzas have been added at different times by more modern poets, which has given rise to the legend mentioned earlier that Kalidasa’s name covers the writings of several. But the master’s work is easy to be distinguished from the verse of his imitators.
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The well-known poem Meghaduta, or “The Cloud Messenger,” contains some of the most beautiful descriptions of Indian scenery ever written. It relates how Yaksha, servant to Kuber, God of wealth, is punished for allowing his master’s garden to be invaded by Indra’s elephant by banishment to the remote solitude of Mount Ramagiri. Here he languishes, and eight months of his wretched exile have already passed at the time the poem begins. Observing a cloud floating northward, low overhead, Yaksha addresses it in his lonely grief, imploring it to carry a message to his beloved wife in distant Alaca. This gives Kalidasa opportunity to describe the scenery on its route. The peacock will dance at this sign of approaching rain:
“Pleased on each terrace dancing with delight
The friendly peacock hails thy grateful flight’
Delay then, certain in Ujjain to find
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All that restores the frame or cheers the mind.
Hence with new real to Siva homage pay,
The God whom earth, and hell, and heaven obey:
For at his shoulders like a dusky robe,
Mantling impends thy vast and shadowy globe
Where ample forests, stretched its skirts below,
Projecting trees like dangling limbs bestow;
And vermeil roses fiercely blooming shed
Their rich reflected glow, their blood resembling red.”
H. H.WILSON.
Most of the poem consists of such vivid descriptions as those quoted of the country the cloud will pass over. Fortunately for the exiled Yaksha, Kuber got to hear of his impassioned prayer and remitted the rest of his exile, uniting him once again with his wife. The slightly pompous Augustan couplets of Mr. Horace Hayman Wilson’s translation scarcely do justice to the original poem, which consists of one hundred and fifteen stanzas, each of four lines, the number of syllables in the Sanskrit line being nearly double that of the metre adopted by its English translator. Some idea of the stately sonorous beauty of Kalidasa’s original medium may be obtained by reading the following example taken from Sakuntala, which describes the King Dushyanta’s speculations as to the causes of his melancholy when he sits in the place where once Sakuntala had been.
“Ramyan i ViskyaMadhrdmscanisamya Sabdan
Paryutsuki-bhavati yat sukhitopi jantuk
Tac cetasd smarati mina mabodhapzir vam
Bhdvasthirani jananantarasauhridani.”
To fully appreciate Kalidasa’s three famous plays, the Malavikagnimitra, Urvasi or “Won by Valour,” and Sakuntala, it is necessary to recollect the tradition from which they sprang. Legend relates that India’s first actual, drama was composed by Pavan, with a main plot obtained from the Ramayana. Pavan engraved his play on a smooth, flat stone, till, displeased with his work, he threw it into the sea. Long afterwards an interested prince sent divers down to take a wax impression of what was carved and lay hid. So, legend tells, the first play arrived in India. It is more likely, however, that, as almost everywhere else in the world, drama in India was slowly developed from some equivalent of Europe’s mummers or Passion Plays, enacted by priests or temple acolytes for the people’s instruction. Such simple, significant religious plays go back to remote antiquity in, for instance, Tibet. In India the principal message most often to be conveyed was that of man’s conquest over temptation and self, frequently typified by rakshas or other supernatural powers of darkness, and the force of tribulation towards his purification. Behind the great play Sakuntala lie the mighty epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana; and behind the Ramayana, going back to 1200 B.C., lie the Sutras, Brahmanas, and, at last, the mystic, questing Rig Veda:
“Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being-
Who knows from whence the great creation sprang?”
MAX MULLER’S Translation.
Who knows whence sprang the poet’s fire and skill? But that tradition of suffering well sustained, which leads at last to a fortunate ending, inspires the theme of Kalidasa’s play, with, for back- cloth, his ardent love of nature-nature the refuge of the Thinking Man, be he ascetic or poet.
The action of Sakuntala opens with King Dushyanta of the lunar race, descendant of Puru, driving in his chariot through the woods. He is in pursuit of an antelope and is about to strike down the hard-pressed beast with his arrow when the voice of a hermit intervenes, bidding the king desist from his wanton slaughter. The king now observes that the part of the woods where he is is blessed by the presence of saints. Fawns feed unafraid on its lawns, and the smoke of aromatic, ceremonial fires rises to hang in the trees. Of a sudden he hears girlish voices. Sakuntala, daughter of a nymph sent down from heaven by Indra to tempt the sage Visvanitra, dwells here with her foster- father, Kanva the hermit, and friends of her age and sex. These damsels are tending the flowers of the grove, talking and laughing, when a bee trespasses on Sakuntala. Laughing, she calls for assistance-and Dushyanta springs to her help, entranced! Kanva has gone on a pilgrimage to Gujarat. Unguarded by him, encouraged by her companions, Sakuntala, “eastern, subtle, evasive,” falls under the spell of Dushyanta’s virile attraction. Her passion is amply reciprocated. When the king learns of her descent from the Kshatriya Visvanitra all scruples disappear and they go through the simple form of gandharva marriage.
But Dushyanta is forced to return to his court. Before Sakuntala can join him there she unluckily omits to offer certain hospitable rites to a formidable ascetic Durvasas, who plays a curse on the girl. Only as long as she wears Dushyanta’s token gift, Durvasas tells her, shall the king remember her face. Sakuntala goes to the court of the king, where he lives surrounded with dancing girls, pleasure gardens, and all luxury can provide. When she comes before him, she is abashed, for Dushyanta does not know her at all. She finds she has dropped her ring in a wayside stream.
Shocked by his distant reception she returns to the forest, resuming her quiet, frugal life. Her son is born there, a lovely, lion-hearted child whom she names Bharata. But, meanwhile, two fishermen have discovered the token ring in the belly of a trapped fish; and so it comes back to the king. At once Dushyanta remembers his gandhava marriage and everything that has passed. Frantically, full of penitence, he sets out to seek Sakuntala. He must travel far and undergo many privations before he finds his young wife. But at last he comes on the infant Bharata playing under a tree. Soon Sakuntala joins them, and so at last their blissful reunion occurs and he carries her back to his court. Thus, briefly, ends the beautiful drama of Sakuntala. The plot is slender enough, but that is not what makes this play. Its true glory, as in all Kalidasa’s work, lies in its wonderful imagery, its splendid erotics and conjuration of every marvel of nature. Moreover, as Frazer says: “In the Sanskrit alone can the lines be traced on which the poet’s fancy modelled a form such as grew to life in ‘Sakuntala,’ who spoke in a music, each note of which was skilfully attuned to her own gentle grace.