Kalidasa
Kālidāsa was a Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on Hindu Puranas and philosophy. His surviving works consist of three plays, two epic poems and two shorter poems.
Much about his life is unknown except what can be inferred from his poetry and plays. His works cannot be dated with precision, but they were most likely authored before the 5th century CE during the Gupta era. Kalidas is mentioned as one of the seven Brahma avatars in Dasam Granth, written by Guru Gobind Singh.
Early life
Kalidasa was of shepherd or Gadaria caste Scholars have speculated that he may have lived near the Himalayas, in the vicinity of Ujjain, and in Kalinga. This hypothesis is based on Kālidāsa's detailed description of the Himalayas in his Kumārasambhavam, the display of his love for Ujjain in Meghadūta, and his highly eulogistic descriptions of Kalingan emperor Hemāngada in Raghuvaṃśam. He is also believed to be born in Kaviltha, Rudraprayad, Uttarakhand based on the monument established in Kaviltha by the Uttarakhand Tourism Department of the Uttarakhand Government. In the Mithila region, the birthplace of Kalidasa is considered at the Kalidas Dih in the Uchchaith village of the Benipatti block in the Madhubani district.Lakshmi Dhar Kalla, a Sanskrit scholar and a Kashmiri Pandit, wrote a book titled The birth-place of Kalidasa, which tries to trace the birthplace of Kālidāsa based on his writings. He concluded that Kālidāsa was born in Kashmir, but moved southwards, and sought the patronage of local rulers to prosper. The evidence cited by him from Kālidāsa's writings includes:
- Description of flora and fauna that is found in Kashmir, but not in Ujjain or Kalinga: the saffron plant, the deodar trees, musk deer etc.
- Description of geographical features common to Kashmir, such as tarns and glades
- Mention of some sites of minor importance that, according to Kalla, can be identified with places in Kashmir. These sites are not very famous outside Kashmir, and therefore, could not have been known to someone not in close touch with Kashmir.
- Reference to certain legends of Kashmiri origin, such as that of the Nikumbha ; mention of the legend about Kashmir being created from a lake. This legend, mentioned in Nīlamata Purāṇa, states that a tribal leader named Ananta drained a lake to kill a demon. Ananta named the site of the former lake as "Kashmir", after his father Kaśyapa.
- According to Kalla, Śakuntalā is an allegorical dramatisation of Pratyabhijna philosophy. Kalla further argues that this branch was not known outside of Kashmir at that time.
Period
Several ancient and medieval books state that Kālidāsa was a court poet of a king named Vikramāditya. A legendary king named Vikramāditya is said to have ruled from Ujjain around the 1st century BCE. A section of scholars believe that this legendary Vikramāditya is not a historical figure at all. There are other kings who ruled from Ujjain and adopted the title Vikramāditya, the most notable ones being Chandragupta II and Yaśodharman.The most popular theory is that Kālidāsa flourished during the reign of Chandragupta II, and therefore lived around the 4th-5th century CE. Several Western scholars have supported this theory, since the days of William Jones and A. B. Keith. Modern western Indologists and scholars like Stanley Wolpert also support this theory. Many Indian scholars, such as Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi and Rāma Gupta, also place Kālidāsa in this period. According to this theory, his career might have extended to the reign of Kumāragupta I, and possibly, to that of Skandagupta.
The earliest paleographical evidence of Kālidāsa is found in a Sanskrit inscription dated, found at Mandsaur's Sun temple, with some verses that appear to imitate Meghadūtam Purva, 66; and the Ṛtusaṃhāra V, 2–3, although Kālidāsa is not named. His name, along with that of the poet Bhāravi, is first mentioned the 634 CE Aihole inscription found in Karnataka.
Theory of multiple Kālidāsas
Some scholars, including M. Srinivasachariar and T. S. Narayana Sastri, believe that works attributed to "Kālidāsa" are not by a single person. According to Srinivasachariar, writers from 8th and 9th centuries hint at the existence of three noted literary figures who share the name Kālidāsa. These writers include Devendra, Rājaśekhara and Abhinanda. Sastri lists the works of these three Kalidasas as follows:- Kālidāsa alias Mātṛgupta, author of Setu-Bandha and three plays.
- Kālidāsa alias Medharudra, author of Kumārasambhavam, Meghadūtam and Raghuvaṃśam.
- Kālidāsa alias Kotijit: author of Ṛtusaṃhāram, Śyāmala-Daṇḍakam and Śṛngāratilakam among other works.
According to K. Krishnamoorthy, "Vikramāditya" and "Kālidāsa" were used as common nouns to describe any patron king and any court poet, respectively.
Works
Epic poems (Mahākāvya)
Kālidāsa is the author of two mahākāvyas, Kumārasambhavam and Raghuvaṃśam.- Kumārasambhava describes the birth and adolescence of the goddess Pārvatī, her marriage to Śiva and the subsequent birth of their son Kumāra.
- Raghuvaṃśa is an epic poem about the kings of the Raghu dynasty.
Minor poems (''Khaṇḍakāvya'')
Kalidasa also wrote the shyamala Dandakam descripting the beauty of Goddess Matangi.
Plays
Kālidāsa wrote three plays. Among them, Abhijñānaśākuntalam is generally regarded as a masterpiece. It was among the first Sanskrit works to be translated into English, and has since been translated into many languages.Image:Raja Ravi Varma - Mahabharata - Shakuntala.jpg|thumb|175px|Śakuntalā stops to look back at Duṣyanta, by Raja Ravi Varma.
- Mālavikāgnimitram tells the story of King Agnimitra, who falls in love with the picture of an exiled servant girl named Mālavikā. When the queen discovers her husband's passion for this girl, she becomes infuriated and has Mālavikā imprisoned, but as fate would have it, Mālavikā is in fact a true-born princess, thus legitimising the affair.
- Abhijñānaśākuntalam tells the story of King Duṣyanta who, while on a hunting trip, meets Śakuntalā, the adopted daughter of the sage Kanha and real daughter of Vishwamitra and Menaka and marries her. A mishap befalls them when he is summoned back to court: Śakuntala, pregnant with their child, inadvertently offends a visiting Durvasa and incurs a curse, whereby Duṣyanta forgets her entirely until he sees the ring he has left with her. On her trip to Duṣyanta's court in an advanced state of pregnancy, she loses the ring, and has to come away unrecognised by him. The ring is found by a fisherman who recognises the royal seal and returns it to Duṣyanta, who regains his memory of Śakuntala and sets out to find her. Goethe was fascinated by Kālidāsa's Abhijñānaśākuntalam, which became known in Europe, after being translated from English to German.
- Vikramōrvaśīyam tells the story of King Pururavas and celestial nymph Ūrvaśī who fall in love. As an immortal, she has to return to the heavens, where an unfortunate accident causes her to be sent back to the earth as a mortal with the curse that she will die the moment her lover lays his eyes on the child which she will bear him. After a series of mishaps, including Ūrvaśī's temporary transformation into a vine, the curse is lifted, and the lovers are allowed to remain together on the earth.
Translations
False attributions and false Kalidasas
According to Indologist Siegfried Lienhard:A large number of long and short poems have incorrectly been attributed to Kalidasa, for instance the Bhramarastaka, the Ghatakarpara, the Mangalastaka, the Nalodaya, the Puspabanavilasa, which is sometimes also ascribed to Vararuci or Ravideva, the Raksasakavya, the Rtusamhara, the Sarasvatistotra, the Srngararasastaka, the Srngaratilaka, the Syamaladandaka and the short, didactic text on prosody, the Srutabodha, otherwise thought to be by Vararuci or the Jaina Ajitasena. In addition to the non-authentic works, there are also some "false" Kalidasas. Immensely proud of their poetic achievement, several later poets have either been barefaced enough to call themselves Kalidasa or have invented pseudonyms such as Nava-Kalidasa, "New Kalidasa", Akbariya-Kalidasa, "Akbar-Kalidasa", etc.
Influence
Kālidāsa's influence extends to all later Sanskrit works that followed him, and on Indian literature broadly, becoming an archetype of Sanskrit literature.Notably in modern Indian literature Meghadūta