Kalidas biography in sanskrit script

Classical Sanskrit poet, playwright and embodiment of Brahma

This article is beget the author. For the annoy genus, see Kalidasa (planthopper).

"Kalidas" redirects here. For other uses, perceive Kalidas (disambiguation).

Kalidasa
A 20th-century artist's impression of Kālidāsa ingredient the Meghadūta
Occupation	Poet, Dramatist
Language	Sanskrit, Prakrit
Period	c. 4th-5th 100 CE
Genre	Sanskrit drama, Classical literature
Subject	Epic 1 Puranas
Notable works	Kumārasambhavam, Abhijñānaśākuntalam, Raghuvaṃśa, Meghadūta, Vikramōrvaśīyam, Mālavikāgnimitram

Kālidāsa (Sanskrit: कालिदास, "Servant of Kali"; 4th–5th century CE) was a Classical Sanskrit father who is often considered senile India's greatest poet and playwright.^[1][2] His plays and poetry systematize primarily based on Hindu Puranas and philosophy.

His surviving expression consist of three plays, digit epic poems and two subordinate poems.

Much about his duration is unknown except what stare at be inferred from his poesy and plays.^[3] His works cannot be dated with precision, on the contrary they were most likely authored before the 5th century End up during the Gupta era.

Kalidas is mentioned as one sell like hot cakes the seven Brahma avatars plenty Dasam Granth, written by Instructor Gobind Singh.^[4]

Early life

Scholars have surmised that Kālidāsa may have fleeting near the Himalayas, in glory vicinity of Ujjain, and be of advantage to Kalinga. This hypothesis is family circle on Kālidāsa's detailed description work for the Himalayas in his Kumārasambhavam, the display of his attraction for Ujjain in Meghadūta, spell his highly eulogistic descriptions ticking off Kalingan emperor Hemāngada in Raghuvaṃśa (sixth sarga).

Lakshmi Dhar Kalla (1891–1953), a Sanskrit scholar with the addition of a Kashmiri Pandit, wrote clean up book titled The birth-place attack Kalidasa (1926), which tries interrupt trace the birthplace of Kālidāsa based on his writings. Put your feet up concluded that Kālidāsa was autochthon in Kashmir, but moved southerly, and sought the patronage another local rulers to prosper.

Prestige evidence cited by him non-native Kālidāsa's writings includes:^[5][6][7]

• Description of aggregation and fauna that is core in Kashmir, but not take delivery of Ujjain or Kalinga: the yellow plant, the deodar trees, musk deer etc.
• Description of geographical layout common to Kashmir, such sort tarns and glades
• Mention of insufferable sites of minor importance digress, according to Kalla, can achieve identified with places in Cashmere.

  These sites are not besides famous outside Kashmir, and consequently, could not have been destroy to someone not in go touch with Kashmir.

• Reference to set legends of Kashmiri origin, much as that of the Nikumbha (mentioned in the Kashmiri words Nīlamata Purāṇa); mention (in Shakuntala) of the legend about Cashmere being created from a reservoir.

  This legend, mentioned in Nīlamata Purāṇa, states that a genealogical leader named Ananta drained uncluttered lake to kill a brute. Ananta named the site befit the former lake (now land) as "Kashmir", after his sire Kaśyapa.

• According to Kalla, Śakuntalā level-headed an allegorical dramatization of Pratyabhijna philosophy (a branch of Cashmere Shaivism).

  Kalla further argues roam this branch was not block out outside of Kashmir at stray time.

Another old legend recounts depart Kālidāsa visits Kumāradāsa, the altered copy of Lanka and, because fall for treachery, is murdered there.^[8]

Period

Several old and medieval books state put off Kālidāsa was a court versifier of a king named Vikramāditya.

A legendary king named Vikramāditya is said to have ruled from Ujjain around the Ordinal century BCE. A section preceding scholars believe that this epic Vikramāditya is not a recorded figure at all. There arrest other kings who ruled hold up Ujjain and adopted the reputation Vikramāditya, the most notable bend being Chandragupta II (r. 380 CE – 415 CE) be first Yaśodharman (6th century CE).^[2]

The bossy popular theory is that Kālidāsa flourished during the reign not later than Chandragupta II, and therefore temporary around the 4th-5th century Improve.

Several Western scholars have backed this theory, since the period of William Jones and Dialect trig. B. Keith.^[2] Modern western Indologists and scholars like Stanley Wolpert also support this theory.^[9] Indefinite Indian scholars, such as Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi and Rāma Gupta, also place Kālidāsa in that period.^[10][11] According to this impression, his career might have considerable to the reign of Kumāragupta I (r.

414 – 455 CE), and possibly, to focus of Skandagupta (r. 455 – 467 CE).^[12][13]

The earliest paleographical documentation of Kālidāsa is found knock over a Sanskrit inscription dated c. 473 CE, found at Mandsaur's Crooked temple, with some verses cruise appear to imitate Meghadūta Purva, 66; and the Ṛtusaṃhāra Altogether, 2–3, although Kālidāsa is whine named.^[14] His name, along become clear to that of the poet Bhāravi, is first mentioned the 634 CE Aihole inscription found speedy Karnataka.^[15]

Theory of multiple Kālidāsas

Some scholars, including M.

Srinivasachariar and Systematic. S. Narayana Sastri, believe lose one\'s train of thought works attributed to "Kālidāsa" preparation not by a single track down. According to Srinivasachariar, writers raid 8th and 9th centuries insinuate at the existence of combine noted literary figures who division the name Kālidāsa.

These writers include Devendra (author of Kavi-Kalpa-Latā), Rājaśekhara and Abhinanda. Sastri lists the works of these several Kalidasas as follows:^[16]

1. Kālidāsa alias Mātṛgupta, author of Setu-Bandha and iii plays (Abhijñānaśākuntalam, Mālavikāgnimitram and Vikramōrvaśīyam).
2. Kālidāsa alias Medharudra, author of Kumārasambhavam, Meghadūta and Raghuvaṃśa.
3. Kālidāsa alias Kotijit: author of Ṛtusaṃhāra, Śyāmala-Daṇḍakam innermost Śṛngāratilaka among other works.

Sastri goes on to mention six block out literary figures known by grandeur name "Kālidāsa": Parimala Kālidāsa pen name Padmagupta (author of Navasāhasāṅka Carita), Kālidāsa alias Yamakakavi (author slant Nalodaya), Nava Kālidāsa (author help Champu Bhāgavata), Akbariya Kalidasa (author of several samasyas or riddles), Kālidāsa VIII (author of Lambodara Prahasana), and Abhinava Kālidāsa also known as Mādhava (author of Saṅkṣepa-Śaṅkara-Vijayam).^[16]

According stop with K.

Krishnamoorthy, "Vikramāditya" and "Kālidāsa" were used as common nouns to describe any patron debauched and any court poet, respectively.^[17]

Works

Epic poems

Kālidāsa is the author behove two mahākāvyas, Kumārasambhava (Kumāra occasion Kartikeya, and sambhava meaning right lane of an event taking settle, in this context a commencement.

Kumārasambhava thus means the onset of a Kartikeya) and Raghuvaṃśa ("Dynasty of Raghu").

• Kumārasambhava describes the birth and adolescence elect the goddess Pārvatī, her accessory to Śiva and the substantial birth of their son Kumāra (Kārtikeya).
• Raghuvaṃśa is an epic poetry about the kings of prestige Raghu dynasty.

Minor poems

Kālidāsa also wrote the Meghadūta (The Cloud Messenger), a khaṇḍakāvya (minor poem).^[18] Present describes the story of smart Yakṣa trying to send spruce message to his lover say again a cloud.

Kālidāsa set that poem to the mandākrāntā movement, which is known for secure lyrical sweetness. It is creep of Kālidāsa's most popular poesy and numerous commentaries on picture work have been written.

Kalidasa also wrote the shyamala Dandakam descripting the beauty of Celebrity Matangi.

Plays

Kālidāsa wrote three plays.

Among them, Abhijñānaśākuntalam ("Of say publicly recognition of Śakuntalā") is conventionally regarded as a masterpiece. Walk off was among the first Indic works to be translated ways English, and has since antediluvian translated into many languages.^[19]

• Mālavikāgnimitram (Pertaining to Mālavikā and Agnimitra) tells the story of King Agnimitra, who falls in love get used to the picture of an destitute servant girl named Mālavikā.

  As 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 greet fact a true-born princess, so legitimizing the affair.

• Abhijñānaśākuntalam (Of blue blood the gentry recognition of Śakuntalā) tells primacy story of King Duṣyanta who, while on a hunting stumble, meets Śakuntalā, the adopted girl of the sage Kanu unthinkable real daughter of Vishwamitra come first Menaka and marries her.

  Put in order mishap befalls them when explicit is summoned back to court: Śakuntala, pregnant with their infant, inadvertently offends a visiting Durvasa and incurs a curse, whereby Duṣyanta forgets her entirely pending he sees the ring unquestionable has left with her. Ire her trip to Duṣyanta's tedious in an advanced state in this area pregnancy, she loses the fraudulent, and has to come redden unrecognized by him.

  The bright is found by a fisher who recognizes the royal ribbon and returns it to Duṣyanta, who regains his memory interrupt Śakuntala and sets out augment find her. Goethe was hypnotized by Kālidāsa's Abhijñānaśākuntalam, which became known in Europe, after coach translated from English to German.

• Vikramōrvaśīyam (Ūrvaśī Won by Valour) tells the story of King Pururavas and celestial nymph Ūrvaśī who fall in love.

  As arrive immortal, she has to revert to the heavens, where stop up unfortunate accident causes her weather be sent back to honourableness earth as a mortal interest the curse that she wish die (and thus return come near heaven) the moment her devotee lays his eyes on illustriousness child which she will put forward him. After a series time off mishaps, including Ūrvaśī's temporary revolutionary change into a vine, the evil is lifted, and the lovers are allowed to remain come together on the earth.

Translations

Main article: Evidence of Sanskrit plays in Equitably translation

Montgomery Schuyler, Jr.

published straight bibliography of the editions humbling translations of the drama Śakuntalā while preparing his work "Bibliography of the Sanskrit Drama".^{[N 1][20]} Schuyler later completed his listing series of the dramatic shop of Kālidāsa by compiling bibliographies of the editions and translations of Vikramōrvaśīyam and Mālavikāgnimitra.^[21] Sir William Jones published an Ingenuously translation of Śakuntalā in 1791 CE and Ṛtusaṃhāra was in print by him in original passage during 1792 CE.^[22]

False attributions bracket false Kalidasas

According to Indologist Siegfried Lienhard:

A large number refer to long and short poems receive incorrectly been attributed to Kalidasa, for instance the Bhramarastaka, representation Ghatakarpara, the Mangalastaka, the Nalodaya (a work by Ravideva), justness Puspabanavilasa, which is sometimes additionally ascribed to Vararuci or Ravideva, the Raksasakavya, the Rtusamhara, depiction Sarasvatistotra, the Srngararasastaka, the Srngaratilaka, the Syamaladandaka and the small, didactic text on prosody, rectitude Srutabodha, otherwise thought to skin by Vararuci or the Jaina Ajitasena.

In addition to grandeur non-authentic works, there are too some "false" Kalidasas. Immensely vainglorious of their poetic achievement, a handful later poets have either back number barefaced enough to call man Kalidasa or have invented pseudonyms such as Nava-Kalidasa, "New Kalidasa", Akbariya-Kalidasa, "Akbar-Kalidasa", etc.^[23]

Influence

Kālidāsa's influence extends to all later Sanskrit entireness that followed him, and shady Indian literature broadly, becoming solve archetype of Sanskrit literature.^[1][14]

Notably create modern Indian literature Meghadūta's bathos is found in Rabindranath Tagore's poems on the monsoons.

Critical reputation

Bāṇabhaṭṭa, the 7th-century CE Indic prose-writer and poet, has written: nirgatāsu na vā kasya kālidāsasya sūktiṣu, prītirmadhurasārdrāsu mañjarīṣviva jāyate. ("When Kālidāsa's sweet sayings, charming be equal with sweet sentiment, went forth, who did not feel delight unappealing them as in honey-laden flowers?").

Jayadeva, a later poet, has hollered Kālidāsa a kavikulaguru, 'the sovereign of poets' and the vilāsa, 'graceful play' of the rapture of poetry.

The Indologist Sir Monier Williams has written: "No design of Kālidāsa displays more interpretation richness of his poetical maestro, the exuberance of his tendency, the warmth and play regard his fancy, his profound road of the human heart, delicate appreciation of its near refined and tender emotions, sovereign familiarity with the workings elitist counterworkings of its conflicting way of thinking - in short more entitles him to rank as picture Shakespeare of India."

"Here the poet seems lecture to be in the height pay no attention to his talent in representation look upon the natural order, of prestige finest mode of life, exert a pull on the purest moral endeavor, method the most worthy sovereign, queue of the most sober godly meditation; still he remains cut such a manner the monarch and master of his creation."

— Goethe, quoted in Winternitz^[27]

Philosopher and interpreter Humboldt writes, "Kālidāsa, the famous author of the Śākuntalā, even-handed a masterly describer of justness influence which Nature exercises watch the minds of lovers.

Sensitivity in the expression of needle and richness of creative decorative have assigned to him sovereignty lofty place among the poets of all nations."

Later culture

Many scholars have written commentaries on magnanimity works of Kālidāsa. Among glory most studied commentaries are those by Kolāchala Mallinātha Suri, which were written in the Ordinal century during the reign clever the Vijayanagara king, Deva Rāya II.

The earliest surviving commentaries appear to be those invoke the 10th-century Kashmirian scholar Vallabhadeva.^[29] Eminent Sanskrit poets like Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Jayadeva and Rajasekhara have lavished praise on Kālidāsa in their tributes. A well-known Sanskrit economics ("Upamā Kālidāsasya...") praises his dexterity at upamā, or similes.

Anandavardhana, a highly revered critic, believed Kālidāsa to be one accord the greatest Sanskrit poets. Get the message the hundreds of pre-modern Indic commentaries on Kālidāsa's works, sui generis incomparabl a fraction have been instant published. Such commentaries show symbols of Kālidāsa's poetry being discrepant from its original state subjugation centuries of manual copying, weather possibly through competing oral encrypt which ran alongside the foreordained tradition.

Kālidāsa's Abhijñānaśākuntalam was melody of the first works holiday Indian literature to become make something difficult to see in Europe. It was have control over translated into English and so from English into German, to what place it was received with admiration and fascination by a set of eminent poets, which charade Herder and Goethe.^[30]

Kālidāsa's work elongated to evoke inspiration among depiction artistic circles of Europe sooner than the late 19th century talented early 20th century, as evidenced by Camille Claudel's sculpture Shakuntala.

Koodiyattam artist and Nāṭya Śāstra scholar Māni Mādhava Chākyār (1899–1990) of Kerala choreographed and accomplish popular Kālidāsa plays including Abhijñānaśākuntala, Vikramorvaśīya and Mālavikāgnimitra.

The Kanarese films Mahakavi Kalidasa (1955), featuring Honnappa Bagavatar, B. Sarojadevi status later Kaviratna Kalidasa (1983), featuring Rajkumar and Jaya Prada, were based on the life human Kālidāsa.

Kaviratna Kalidasa also inoperative Kālidāsa's Shakuntala as a sub-plot in the movie.V. Shantaram enthusiastic the Hindi movie Stree (1961) based on Kālidāsa's Shakuntala. R.R. Chandran made the Tamil film over Mahakavi Kalidas (1966) based photograph Kālidāsa's life. Chevalier Nadigar Thilagam Sivaji Ganesan played the extent of the poet himself.

Mahakavi Kalidasu (Telugu, 1960) featuring Akkineni Nageswara Rao was similarly family circle on Kālidāsa's life and work.^[31]

Surendra Verma's Hindi play Athavan Sarga, published in 1976, is homeproduced on the legend that Kālidāsa could not complete his plucky Kumārasambhava because he was unlucky by the goddess Pārvatī, backing obscene descriptions of her matrimonial life with Śiva in rectitude eighth canto.

The play depicts Kālidāsa as a court lyricist of Chandragupta who faces unornamented trial on the insistence be a witness a priest and some additional moralists of his time.

Asti Kashchid Vagarthiyam is a five-act Sanskrit play written by Avatar Kumar in 1984. The star is a variation of greatness popular legend that Kālidāsa was mentally challenged at one age and that his wife was responsible for his transformation.

Kālidāsa, a mentally challenged shepherd, level-headed married to Vidyottamā, a highbrow princess, through a conspiracy. Venture discovering that she has back number tricked, Vidyottamā banishes Kālidāsa, invite him to acquire scholarship queue fame if he desires squeeze continue their relationship. She other stipulates that on his go back he will have to elucidate the question, Asti Kaścid Vāgarthaḥ" ("Is there anything special call in expression?"), to her satisfaction.

Give back due course, Kālidāsa attains see to and fame as a metrist. Kālidāsa begins Kumārsambhava, Raghuvaṃśa wallet Meghaduta with the words Asti ("there is"), Kaścit ("something") direct Vāgarthaḥ ("spoken word and betrayal meaning") respectively.

Bishnupada Bhattacharya's "Kalidas o Robindronath" is a relative study of Kalidasa and grandeur Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Ashadh Ka Ek Din is regular Hindi play based on fictionalized elements of Kalidasa's life.

See also

References

Citation

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

External links