Kalidasa - S Radhakrishnan

Part I

Great classics of literature spring from profound depths in human experience. They come to us who live centuries later in vastly different conditions as the voice of our own experience. They release echoes within ourselves of what we never suspected was there. The deeper one goes into one’s own experience, facing destiny, fighting fate, or enjoying love, the more does one’s experience have in common with the experiences of others in climes and ages. The most unique is the most universal. The Dialogues of the Buddha or of Plato, the dramas of Sophocles, the plays of Shakespeare are both national and universal. The more profoundly they are rooted in historical traditions, the more uniquely do they know themselves and elicit powerful responses from others. There is a timeless and spaceless quality about great classics.

Kalidasa is the great representative of India’s spirit, grace and genius. The Indian national consciousness is the base from which his works grow. Kalidasa has absorbed India’s cultural heritage, made it his own, enriched it, given it universal scope and significance. Its spiritual directions, its intellectual amplitude, its artistic expressions, its political forms and economic arrangements, all find utterance in fresh, vital, shining phrases. We find in his works at their best, simple dignity of language, precision of phrase, classical taste, cultivated judgement, intense poetic sensibility and fusion of thought and feeling. In his dramas we find pathos, power, beauty, and great skill in the construction of plot and delineation of character. He is at home in royal courts and on mountain tops, in happy home and forest hermitages. He has a balanced outlook which enables him to deal sympathetically with men of high and low degree, fishermen, courtesans, servants. These great qualities make his works belong to the literature of the world. Humanity recognizes itself in them though they deal with Indian themes. In India, Kalidasa is recognized as the greatest poet and dramatist in Sanskrit literature. While once the poets were being counted Kalidasa as being the first occupied the last finger. But the ring-finger remained true to its name, anamika nameless, since the second to Kalidasa has not yet been found. Tradition associates Kalidasa with King Vikramaditya of Ujjayini who founded the Vikrama era of 57 BC. The change in the name of the hero of Vikramorvasiya from Pururavas to Vikrama lends support to the view that Kalidasa belonged to the court of King Vikramaditya of Ujjayini. Agnimitra who is the hero of the drama Malavikagnimitra was not a well-known monarch to deserve special notice by Kalidasa. He belonged to the second century before Christ and his capital was Vidisa. Kalidasa’s selection of this episode and his reference to Vidisa as the famous capital of a king in Meghaduta suggest that Kalidasa was a contemporary of Agnimitra. It is clear that Kalidasa flourished after Agnimitra (150 BC) and before AD 634, the date of the famous Aihole inscription which refers to Kalidasa as a great poet. If the suggestion that some verses of Mandas or inscription of AD 473 assume knowledge of Kalidasa’s writings is accepted, then his date cannot be later than the end of the fourth century AD. There are similarities between Asvaghosa’s Buddhacarita and Kalidasa’s works. If Asvaghosa is the debtor, then Kalidasa was of an earlier date than the first century AD. If Kalidasa is the debtor, then his date would be later than the first century.

It is suggested that Kalidasa belongs to the Gupta period and lived in the reign of Chandragupta II, who had the title of Vikramaditya. He came to power about AD 345 and ruled till about AD 414. Whichever date we adopt, we are in the region of reasonable conjecture and nothing more.

Kalidasa speaks very little of himself and we cannot therefore be sure of his authorship of many works attributed to him. There is, however, general agreement about Kalidasa’s authorship of the following works:

• Abhijnana-Sakuntala, a drama in seven acts dealing with the love and marriage of Dusyanta and Sakuntala;

• Vikramorvasiya, a drama in five acts dealing with the love and marriage of Pururavas and Urvasi;

• Malvikagnimitra, a drama in five acts dealing with the love of Malivika and Agnimitra;

• Raghuvamsa, an epic poem of nineteen cantos describing the lives of the Kings of the solar race;

• Kumarasambhava, also an epic poem, of seventeen cantos, dealing with the marriage of Siva and Parvati and the birth of Kumara, the lord of war;

• Meghaduta, a poem of 111 stanzas¹ describing the message of a Yaksa to his wife, to be conveyed through a cloud;

• Rtu-Samhara, a descriptive account of the six seasons.

Kalidasa takes up his themes from the traditional lore of the country and transforms them to achieve his object. For example, in the epic story Sakuntala was a calculating, worldly young woman and Dusyanta a selfish lover. The poet wishes to exhibit the sentiment of love from its first awakening in a hermitage girl to its fullest perfection through the stages of separation, frustration, etc. In his own words, a play must present the diversity of life, and communicate charm and sweetness to men of varied tastes:

Traigunyodbhavam atra loka-caritam nanratam drsyate natyam bhinna-rucer janasya bahudhapi ekam samaradhanam.

We do not know any details about Kalidasa’s life. Numerous legends have gathered round his name which have no historical value. From his writings it is clear that he lived in an age of polished elegance and leisure, was greatly attached to the arts of song and dance, drawing and painting, was acquainted with the sciences of the day, versed in law and learned in the philosophical systems and ritual practices. He traveled widely in India and seems to have been familiar with the geography of the country from the Himalayas to Kanya Kumari. His graphic description of the Himalayan scenes, of the saffron flower the plant of which grows in Kashmir, look like those of one who has personal acquaintance.

The master artist suggests by a few touches what others fail to express even by elaborate discourses. Kalidasa is famous for his economy of words and naturalness of speech in which sound and sense match. His pen-pictures are graceful and perfect, the royal chariot in full speed², the running deer³, Urvasi’s bursting into tears⁴, Narada’s appearance in the sky like a moving kalpa-vrks⁵. He is master in the use of simile and analogy.

Sarasijam anuvidham saivalenapi ramyam
Malinam api himansor laksma laksmim tanoti
iyam adhika-manojrid valkalenapi tanvi
Kim iva hi madhuranam mandanam nakirtinam

‘A lotus, though intertwined with moss, is charming. The speck, though dark, heightens the beauty of the moon. This slim one, even with the bark dress, is more lovely. For what is not an embellishment of lovely forms?’⁶

Kalidasa’s writings instruct not by direct teaching but by gentle persuasion as by a loving wife. Mammata says: kantasammitatayopadesayuje; ramadivat vartitavyam, na ravanadivat. By an aesthetic presentation of great ideals, the artist leads us to an acceptance of the same. We live vicariously the life of every character that is set before us and out of it all comes a large measure of understanding of mankind in general. Kalidasa projects his rich and glowing personality on a great cultural tradition and gives utterance to its ideals of salvation, order, love. He expresses the desires, the urges, the hopes, the dreams, the successes and the failures of man in his struggle to make himself at home in the world. India has stood for a whole, integrated life and resisted any fragmentation of it. The poet describes the psychological conflicts that divide the soul and helps us to pull the whole pattern together.

Kalidasa’s works preserve for us moments of beauty, incidents of courage, acts of sacrifice and fleeting moods of the human heart. His works will continue to be read for that indefinable illumination about the human predicament which is the work of a great poet. Many of his lines have become almost like proverbs in Sanskrit. Kumara-sambhava opens with a verse in which the poet speaks as if the Himalayas were the measuring rod spanning the wide land from the east to the western sea.

He suggests that the culture developed in the Himalayan regions may be the ‘measuring rod’ of the cultures of the world. This culture is essentially spiritual in quality. We are ordinarily imprisoned in the wheel of time, in historicity and so are restricted to the narrow limits of existence. Our aim should be to lift ourselves out of our entanglement to an awareness of the real which is behind and beyond all time and history, that which does not become, that which is absolute, non-historical being itself. We cannot think it, enclose it within categories, images and verbal structures. We know more than we can think and express in historical forms. The end of man is to become aware by experience of this absolute reality. Compare the words of Raghuvamsa: ‘brahmabhuyam gatim ajagama.’ The man of enlightenment reaches the supreme timeless life. The performer of good deeds has heaven for his share. We know the real by the deepest part of our being: atmanam atmana vetsi.⁷ The Real is the knower and the known: vedyam ca vedita casi⁸. Again: yam aksaram veda-vido vidus tam atmanam atmany avalokayantam⁹. The Supreme leads a life of contemplation. Though he grants the fruits of others’ austerities, he himself performs austerities: svayam vidhata tapasah phalanam kenapi kamena tapas cacara¹⁰.

The Absolute which is the Real beyond all darkness is superior to the division of spirit and matter. It is omniscient, omnipresent and almighty. It manifests itself in the three forms (trimurti), Brahma, Vishnu and Siva—the maker, the preserver and the destroyer. These gods are of equal rank and a believer may select any form which appeals to him for worship. In daily life, Kalidasa was a follower of the Saiva system. The opening invocations of the three dramas Sakuntala, Vikramorvasiya, Malavikagnimitra, show that Kalidasa was a devotee of Siva.

The opening verse of Raghuvamsa reads:

Vagarthav iva samprktau vagartha-pratipattaye
Jagatah pitarau vande parvati-paramesvarau

While in Malavikagnimitra, the Lord should set us on the right path, sammarga, in Vikramorvasiya, he is said to be easily attainable by devotion, bhakti-yoga-sulabha, in Sakuntala, the Lord in his eightfold form is seen. Immediate insight into the Divine reality is the aim of religion.

Though Kalidas worshipped the Divine as Siva, his attitude was not in any way exclusive or narrow-minded. He had the catholic attitude of traditional Hinduism¹¹. He treated with great respect the views of others.

Kalidasa has sympathy with all forms of religion and is free from prejudice and fanaticism. Each person can tread the path which appeals to him, for the different forms of Godhead are the manifestations of the One Supreme who is the formless behind all forms.

Tvam eva havyam hota ca bhojyam bhokta ca sasvatah vedtan ca veduta casu dgtata dgtaten ca tat oaran.¹²

Raghu, after installing Aja on the throne, retires to the forest, takes to a life of meditation and attains that which is beyond darkness.

Tamasah paramapadavyayam purusam yoga-samadhina raghuh.¹³

Until the end of religion, the realization of the Supreme, the ascent from the vanity of time is attained, we will have opportunities for making progress towards the goal. In this journey towards the end we will be governed by the law of karma. Kalidasa accepts the theory of rebirth.

ramyani viksya madhurams ca nisamya sabdan paryutsuki bhavati yat sukhito’ pi jantuh tac cetasa samarati nunam abodhapurvam bhavasthirani jananantara sauhradani.

Sita, when banished by Rama, says:

When he is born, I’ll scorn my queenly station Gaze on the sun, and live a hell on earth, That I may know no pain of separation From you, my husband, in another birth.¹⁴

This life is one stage in the path to perfection. Even as the present life is the result of our past deeds, we can shape our future by our efforts in this life. The world is under a moral government. The good will ultimately triumph. If we have no tragedies in Kalidasa, it is because he affirms the ultimate reality of concord and decency. Subject to this conviction, he induces our sympathy for the hard lot of the majority of men and women.

Kalidasa’s writings dispose of the misconception that the Hindu mind was attentive to transcendental matters, and neglectful of mundane affairs. Kalidasa’s range of experience was wide. He enjoyed life, people, pictures and flowers. He does not separate men from the cosmos and from the forces of religion. He knows the full range of human sorrow and desire, meager joy and endless hope. He points to a harmony of four main interests of human life, dharma, artha, kama and moksa, the ethical, the economic, the artistic and the spiritual. The economic including the political and the artistic should be controlled by ethical norms. Ends and means are bound together. Life becomes livable only through valid ties. To cleanse and illuminate those ties was the poet’s task.

Kalidasa did not feel called upon to choose between religion and morality on the one side and progress and security on the other. These are not hostile to each other.

History is not a natural but a moral phenomenon. It is not a mere temporal succession. Its essence lies in the spiritual which informs the succession. The historian should penetrate and comprehend that inward moral dynamism. History is the work of man’s ethical will of which liberty and creativity are the expressions.

The kings of the Raghu race were pure from birth, ruled over extensive domains stretching from earth to the ocean, asamudra ksitisanam. They amassed riches for charity, spoke measured words for the sake of truth, were eager for victory for the sake of glory and were householders for the sake of off-spring. They gained knowledge in childhood, enjoyed the pleasures of life in youth, adopted the ascetic life in old age and in the end cast away their bodies by yoga or meditation.

The kings collected revenues for the prosperity of their subjects, prajanam eva bhutyartham, even as the sun takes up water to give it back a thousand fold. The rulers must stand up for dharma, justice. The king is the real father of the people, he educates them, protects them and provides for their livelihood, while the actual parents are only the causes of their physical birth.

Every one in Aja’s kingdom thought that he was a personal friend of the king.

aham eva mato mahi-pater iti sarvah prakritis-vacintayat.

The ascetic tells the king in Sakuntala: ‘Your weapon is for the protection of the afflicted and not for striking at the innocent’. arta-tranaya vah sastram na prahartum anagasi. Bharata, the son of Dusyanta and Sakuntala, from whom this country takes its name is called sarva-damana—not merely one who conquered every ferocious beast of the forest but has achieved self-control also. Self-control is essential for rulership.¹⁵

In Raghuvamsa, Agnivarna gives himself to dissipation. He has so many mistresses that he cannot always call them by their right names. He develops a wasting disease and as, even in that condition he is unable to resist the pleasures of the senses, he dies.

Kalidasa gives up pictures of the saint and the sage, the hero and the heroine with their nobility. They are the directing minds within a civilization. Nobility and self-control are their distinctive characteristics. Discipline is essential for a decent human life. Kalidasa says: ‘Even though produced in a mine, a gem is not worthy of being set in gold. O noble lady, so long as it is uncut.’

Apyakara samutpanna mani-jatir asamskrta jata-rupena kalyani na hi samyogam arhati.¹⁶

Though Kalidasa’s works exalt austerity and adore saints and sages, he does not worship the begging bowl.

The laws of dharma are not static and unchanging. The tradition of the past has to be interpreted by one’s own insight and awareness. Tradition and individual experience interpenetrate. We are the inheritors of the past but are also trustees of the future. In the last analysis, each one must find the guide for one’s conduct in the innermost center of himself. When Arjuna in the opening chapter of the Bhagavadgita declines to conform to the demands of society which impose on him as a ksatriya the obligation to fight, when Socrates says, ‘Men of Athens, I will obey God rather than you’, they are taking their stand on inward integrity rather than on outward conformity.

(To be continued in August, 2006 issue)

Footnotes

1. Some MSS have a few additional verses.
2. Vikramorvasiya, I.4.
3. Abhijnana-Sakuntala, I.7.
4. Vikramorvasiya, V.15.
5. Ibid., Y.19.
6. Abhijnana-Sakuntala, I.17.
7. Kumarasambhava, II,10; see Bhagavadgita, X.15.
8. Kumarasambhava, II.15; see Bhagavadgita, XI.17.
9. III.50.
10. I.57.
11. Yuan Chwang tells us that, at the great festival of Prayaga, King Harsa dedicated a statute to the Budha on the first day; to the Sun, the favorite deity of his father, on the second; and to Siva, on the third.
12. Kumarasambhava, II.4, 15.
13. Raghuvamsa, VIII, 24.
14. Raghuvamsa, XIV. Ryder’s English translation. He refers to the child in her womb.
15. Kautilya remarks: bharata iti lokasya bharanat. He is called Bharata because he supports the world. VII.33.
16. Malavikagnimitra, V., 18.

© "Living with a purpose" by Dr. S Radhakrishnan, published by Orient Paperbacks (A Division of Vision Books (P) Limited) 24 Feroze Gandhi Road, Lajpat Nagar III, Kasnmere Gate, New Delhi 110 024. Reprinted with permission.

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