A History of Sanskrit Literature c11.s9.38

c11.s9.38

‘She with the eyes of the intoxicated Cakora, in modesty (*lajjā*) made offering of fried rice (*lāja*) in the fire.’ In Canto ix of the *Raghuvaṁça* Kālidāsa deliberately shows his skill in Yamakas; there is no doubt that this offends the sound rule of Ānandavardhana that to seek deliberately such a result destroys the function of poetry which is to suggest—or express—not merely to exhibit form, and we can only conjecture that in this canto, which also is marked out by the amazing number of metres employed, Kālidāsa was seeking to prove that he could vie with any rival in these niceties. In Canto xviii also, Yamakas are superabundant. Throughout, however, we feel Kālidāsa seeking for the matching of sound and sense, to which the Indian ear was clearly more susceptible than our own.