A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s8.113

v3.c35.s8.113

In several manuscripts, Ghaṭakarpara³, “The Broken Jar” too is attributed to Kālidāsa. It is a poem of 22 elegantly rhyming stanzas, in which a young damsel, at the advent of the rains, gives expression to her feeling of anxiety for her husband, who is away, and sends to him her greeting through the clouds — hence a counterpart of the Meghadūta. The poem has obtained this title from the fact that the poet in its last verse offers to carry water in a broken jar to any poet who may surpass him in the matter of rhyming. Rückert⁴ has rightly said that had this “broken vessel” been a German one, it would not have been even worth picking up at all”, and that in respect of rhyming the water did not reach the Nalodaya. It is certain that the work is not of Kālidāsa. Frequently it is ascribed to a poet Ghaṭakarpara, who (according to the fashion of Persian poets) inscribed his name in the concluding stanza⁵.