A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.772

c5.772

KĀLI-DĀSA. The greatest poet and dramatist of India. He was one of “the nine gems” that adorned the court of King Vikramāditya at Ujjayinī. Wilson inclines to the belief that this was the Vikramāditya whose era begins in 56 B.C., but Dr. Bhāu Dājī argues in favour of Harsha Vikramāditya who lived in the middle of the sixth century, so the date of Kāli-dāsa is unsettled. Williams thinks that Kāli-dāsa wrote about the beginning of the third century. Lassen places him half a century earlier. Some believe that there was more than one poet who bore this name as an honorary title. Kāli-dāsa was author of the dramas Sakuntalā and Vikramorvaśī, and a third drama Mālavikāgnimitra is attributed to him. Sakuntalā was translated by Sir W. Jones, and first brought Sanskrit literature to the notice of Europe. Wilson has translated Vikramorvaśī, and given a sketch of Mālavikāgnimitra. The following poems are ascribed to Kāli-dāsa :—Raghu-vansa, Kumāra-sambhava, Megha-dūta, Ritu-sanhāra, Nalodaya, but his authorship of all these, especially of the last, may well be doubted. He was also author of the Śruta-bodha, a work on prosody. The merits of Kāli-dāsa as a poet are well attested by his great popularity in India, as well as by the great favour with which Sakuntalā was received in Europe, and the praise it elicited from Goethe :—