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A History of Sanskrit Literature c11.s3: 3. Kālidāsa’s Life

A History of Sanskrit Literature c11.s3

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English

3. Kālidāsa’s Life

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We know nothing whatever of value from later sources regarding the life and character of Kālidāsa.² Anecdotes are told asserting that he was originally extremely stupid, and won skill in poetry by the favour of Kālī, an obvious deduction from his name, slave of Kālī. He is alleged also to have shown remarkable skill in the ready manufacture of verses to order, either to describe a given situation or to complete an imperfect stanza, and a more circumstantial legend¹ tells of his murder in Ceylon while a guest of King Kumāradāsa at the hands of a greedy hetaira. There is not the slightest ground to accept the suggestion, still less to find in it an indication of date, Kālidāsa's visit to Ceylon on this view being due to the Hun inroads. His own poems, on the other hand, and especially the description of Raghu's conquests, prove him intimately acquainted with many Indian scenes, the sandal of Kashmir, the pearl fisheries of the Tāmraparṇī, the deodars of the Himālayas, the betel and coco-palms of Kaliṅga, the sand of the Indus, but it would be hazardous to claim for him any part in the great expedition of Samudragupta when he won his right to perform the horse sacrifice as a sign of his paramount power in India.

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² On his date see Liebich, IF. xxxi. 198 ff.; Keith, *Sanskrit Drama*, pp. 143 ff.; Hillebrandt, *Kālidāsa* (1921). S. Ray (POCP. 1919, i, p. lix) held him to be Agnimitra’s court poet (*c.* 150 B. C.), but K. G. Sankar (IHQ. i. 309 ff.) puts him between 75 and 25 B. C.

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¹ Geiger, *Lit. und Sprache der Singhalesen*, pp. 3 ff.; Rhys-Davids, JRAS. 1888 pp. 148 ff.; Bendall, p. 440; Nandargikar, *Kumāradāsa*, pp. v ff.; Vidyabhusana, POCP. 1919, i, p. clxxii.

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Nonetheless it is difficult to dissociate Kālidāsa from the great moments of the Gupta power. He was later than Açvaghoṣa and than the dramatist Bhāsa; he knew Greek terms, as his use of *jāmitra* proves, the Prākrit of his dramas is decidedly later than Açvaghoṣa's and Bhāsa's, and he cannot be put before the Gupta age. His complete acceptance of the Brahmanical system, the sense of sharing in a world of prosperity and power, the mention of the horse sacrifice in the *Mālavikāgnimitra*, Raghu's conquests in the *Raghuvaṁça*, seem best explicable as the outcome of the enjoyment of the protection of a great Gupta ruler, and we must remember that Candragupta II had the style of Vikramāditya, with whose name tradition consistently connects Kālidāsa. Nor is it absurd to see in the title *Kumārasambhava* a hint at the young Kumāragupta, the heir apparent, or even in *Vikramorvaçī* an allusion to the title Vikramāditya. It has been attempted to refer Kālidāsa to the sixth century by making the Vikramāditya of tradition the Yaçodharman² who defeated the Huns, but this theory is no longer in repute. More favour¹ has been shown to the view that Kālidāsa lived under Kumāragupta and Skandagupta, mainly on the score that Mallinātha and Dakṣiṇāvartanātha ascribe to him in v. 14 of the *Meghadūta* a *double entendre* referring to Dinnāga, the Buddhist logician, as a hostile critic, and that his own reference to the Hūṇas and the river Vaṅkṣū in the *Raghuvaṁça* alludes to the time when these warriors were still in the Oxus valley just before their defeat by Skandagupta. The first argument is invalidated by the grave improbability of the tasteless reference in the *Meghadūta* and by the fact that, even if it were real, Dinnāga's date need not be later than 400. The second imputes to Kālidāsa a desire to achieve historic realism quite out of keeping with his poetic aim, and irreconcilable with his mention of the Greeks as on the north-west frontier as well as the Pārasīkas, Kāmbojas and Hūṇas.² That Kālidāsa lived to see the Hūṇa victories is most implausible, while his evident affection for Ujjayinī suggests that he spent much of his time there under Candragupta's favour.

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² Hoernle, JRAS. 1909, pp. 89 ff.

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¹ Gawroński, *The Digvijaya of Raghu*, pp. 1 ff.; Smith, EHI. p. 321, n. 1.

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² The term found in the epic was perhaps first used of the Hiung-nu of the 2nd cent. B. C.

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This conclusion is strongly supported by evidence culled from Vatsabhaṭṭi. Two of his verses run:

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*calatpatākāny abalāsanāthāny: atyarthaçuklāny adhikonnātāni*
*taḍillatācitrasitābhrakūṭa-: tulyopamānāni gṛhāṇi yatra.*
*Kailāsatuṅgaçikharapratimāni cānyāny: ābhānti dīrghavalabhīni savedikāni*
*gāndharvaçabdamukharāṇi niviṣṭacitra-: karmāṇi lolakadalīvanaçobhitāni.*

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'The houses there, dazzling white and towering high, with their waving banners and tender maidens, are rivals of the cloud-pinnacles, snow-white, but stained by the lightning-creeper. Yet others match Kailāsa's lofty peaks, with their long balconies and seats of stone, as they resound with music, are decked with pictures, and are adorned with groves of waving plantains.'

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These stanzas can hardly be deemed other than an attempt to improve on v. 65 of the *Meghadūta*:

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*vidyutvantaṁ lalitavanitāḥ sendracāpaṁ sacitrāḥ*
*saṁgītāya prahatamurajāḥ snigdhagambhīraghoṣam*
*antastoyaṁ maṇimayabhuvas tuṅgam abhramlihāgrāḥ*
*prāsādās tvāṁ tulayitum alaṁ yatra tais tair viśeṣaiḥ.*

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‘There the palaces can vie with thee at every point: their fair maidens rival thy lightning, their paintings thy rainbow, their drums beaten in concert thy lovely deep thundering, their jewelled floors thy water, their peaks that touch the sky thy height.’ To suppose that Kālidāsa knew these clumsy verses of an obscure poetaster and turned them into the simple elegance of his verse is absurd; to hold that a local poet appropriated and tried to improve on a verse of the great poet of Ujjayinī is natural and simple, and, if confirmation were needed, it is supplied by the fact¹ that v. 31 of the inscription deals similarly with vv. 2 and 3 of Canto v of the *Ṛtusaṁhāra*. Kālidāsa then lived before A. D. 472, and probably at a considerable distance, so that to place him about A. D. 400 seems completely justified.²

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¹ Kielhorn, GN. 1890, pp. 251 ff.

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² On the later emperors, see R. C. Majumdar, JPASB. 1921, pp. 249 ff.

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