"MEGHADUTA" - CLOUD MESSENGER

 

"MEGHADUTA"  -  CLOUD  MESSENGER

 

Look who is on Cloud 9 -   Kalidasa the eminent poet and playwright in Sanskrit !

 

 

 

 

Kalidasa was absolutely fascinating and interesting Sanskrit poet of India.

Kalidasa, (4th–5th century CE), considered to be one of the greatest Sanskrit poets.  It describes how a Yaksa (or nature spirit), who had been banished by his master, the King Kubera (the God of Wealth) to a remote region on a mountain peek for a year, asked a cloud to take a message of love to his wife.

 

Meghduta is a beautiful love-lyric.  The poet fascinatingly describes the travels of the cloud from Ramagiri in Central India to Alakanagari in the Himalayas.  The rivers, hills and mountains, cities and towns, vast fields, farmers' daughters as well as girls in the cities, the birds and the bees are all described by the poet vividly.  It is a total picture of a beautiful world.  

You can see here that it's not Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp messenger, Telegram Chat or other various messenger apps but the cloud the Yaksa  requested to send his message to his beloved.  Of-course  in 4-5th CE there was no such facilities existed.  The messengers then were the birds such as hansa (hamsa-sandesha), dove and in this case the cloud.

 

Kalidasa wrote plays in verse mostly revolving around love, adventure, moral lessons, and beauty in nature. 

Mahakavi Kalidasa was a great poet in Sanskrit, a renowned Indian language.  He was an Indian Author par excellence. 

 

The Meghaduta is the lament of an exiled yaksa (a benevolent nature spirit) who is pining for his beloved on a lonely mountain peak. When, at the beginning of a monsoon, a cloud perches on the peak, he asks it to deliver a message to his wife in the Himalayan city of Alaka.  Most of the poem, composed in an extremely graceful metre, consists of a description of the landmarks, cities, and sights on the cloud’s journey to Alaka.

 

Meghaduta, (Sanskrit: “Cloud Messenger”) lyric love poem in some 115 verses composed by Kalidasa about the 5th century CE.    The verse is unique to Sanskrit literature in that the poet attempts to go beyond the strophic unity of the short lyric, normally the form preferred for love poems, by stringing the stanzas into a narrative.   This innovation did not take hold, though the poem inspired imitations along precisely the same story line. 

 

Indian criticism has ranked it highest among Kalidasa’s poems for brevity of expression, richness of content, and power to elicit sentiment, and the praise is not undeserved.

 

The poem become well-known in Sanskrit literature and inspired other poets to write similar poems (known as messenger-poem",  or Sandesha kavya) on similar themes.

Kalidasa's plays and poetry are primarily based on the Vedas, the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas. 

Kalidasa wrote seven works.  "Kumarasambhava" and "Raghuvamsha" are his two epic poems.  "Malavikagnimitra", "Vikramorvashiya" and  "Abhijhanashakuntalam" are his celebrated plays.  "Meghduta" and "Ritusamhara" are also poetical works of great distinction.

 

The name of Kalidasa dominates Indian poetry and epitomizes it brilliantly. The drama, a grand and scholarly epic, a truly classical master piece, which India admires and humanity recognizes. The praise which is saluting the birth of Shakuntala at Ujjayini, has existed over long centuries, bringing illumination from one world to the other since William Jones revealed it to the West.

 

 

 

 

India's spiritual values and high moral tone expressed through her immortal Sanskrit literature was to make a great impact on the minds of creative writers in the West. The famous Abhijnana Shakuntalam of the fourth-century poet Kalidasa was in demand in the West for India’s eternal values as they are reflected in her immortal literature touched the very core of the Western mind.

 

Where was Kalidasa born ?

 

An eminent scholar states that Kalidasa was born in Kashmir, and moved southwards, to prosper under local rulers.

 

Was Kalidasa brilliant as a boy.  There are stories stating that he was the most stupid and idiot as a young lad.  

 

Once upon a time there was some eminent scholars (Pandits) was passing through a tree and spotted Kalidasa sitting on the wrong end of the tree branch and cutting it with an axe.  To the great amusement of the Pandits he came crashing down with it to the ground.  

 

An irate Pandits thought about the princess Vidyotama who ridiculed the Pandits on many counts on several occasions.  She also wanted a groom who can defeat her in a debate on scriptures.  The Pandits chalked out a plan to teach the proud princess a lesson. 

 

The shrewd pandits took the stupid boy to the palace and presented him as a suitable match for her marriage.   They told her that he is a learned scholar sage on a silence vow.

The Pandits told Kalidasa to pretend like a dumb and do the gestures if any questions are asked by the princess.  The princess tested the sage and Kalidasa made some wild  gesticulations in reply to her questions.  Immediately the Pandits intervened and interpreted that these gestures are witty answers and retorts.  The Princess was impressed and married Kalidasa.

 

At the wedding night the princess asked him some questions and came to know that she married a fool.  She immediately threw the idiot out of her kingdom.  Kalidasa wandered in the land and read many books, done meditations, and near a river bank he prayed to Goddess Durga (Kali) to give him divine knowledge.  A pleased Goddess with his utmost devotion to her gave him the boons to become a scholar.   

 

The another story reveals that Vidyottama was one of the most erudite and talented women of her time.  Although much of what is known about her is hearsay, yet her extraordinary genius has been historically established through the works of her husband, Kalidasa, the great Indian poet of antiquity, who nevertheless began life as a simple cowherd. 

 

Vidyottama was the daughter of the famous king Vikramaditya of Ujjain. She was named Gunamanjari (Garland of Virtues) by her parents, who appointed Acharya Vararuchi as her tutor in scholarship and academics, while Ganadas was given the task of developing her talents in the arts, particularly dance and music. By the time she was twelve, Gunamanjari had mastered all that her gurus had to teach her, and there was no field, whether in scholarship or in the gentle arts, which she did not excel in. Thus she came to be known as Vidyottama (She who excels all in learning). Her phenomenal accomplishments attracted kings and princes from all over the country who vied for her hand in marriage. However, King Vikramaditya declared that only he who could prove himself more learned than Vidyottama, could win her—a condition that none could fulfill.

 

 

                                

         

                    Dr.  Rajkumar and Jayaprada in the movie "Kavi Ratna Kalidas"

 

It is said Vidyottama’s pride knew no bounds, and she even had the audacity to make fun of her guru Vararuchi.  Stung by her irreverence, the Acharya cursed her, saying that her husband would be no better than a keeper of animals.  To compound her humiliation, he conspired to get her married off to a totally illiterate person, namely Kalidasa.  Not satisfied even with that, he commanded Kalidasa to communicate with his wife only through signs. This delayed the discovery of the trick only a while; Vidyottama found out her husband’s secret when she gave him the manuscript of her work called Sringarodaya to correct.  She was completely shattered to find he could neither read nor write.  Kalidasa, who really loved her, realised that he was the cause of her misery and so one night he quietly left the palace.   For ten years he studied under many renowned teachers, at a time when those who possessed learning jealously guarded it.   He finally retuned to Ujjain to write his famous epics, or at least so the legend says.  When Vidyottama objected to one of his erotic descriptions in Kumarasambhava and asked him to omit it, Kalidasa humbly refused to give in to her.  When she insisted, he left Ujjain, never to return, his poem still incomplete.  After his death it was Vidyottama who completed Kumarasambhava, and the essences of loyalty and bravery, which animate this epic, are not evident in any other poem of Kalidasa’s.   Vidyottama edited even Raghuvansha, and it was she who gave it its heroic spirit.   It is said that whatever was left incomplete by Valmiki was completed by Kalidasa and whatever was weak or incomplete in Kalidasa was made immortal by Vidyottama.   After the completion of Kumarasambhava, Vidyottama went on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash with her companion Priyamvada.

 

There are many movies made based on Mahakavi Kalidasa and his epic works.  He remained immortal after his death through his literary treasures. 
 

 

Kalidasa's death story is unraveled as below - 

 

Kalidasa has been found murdered in a prostitute's house in Colombo. As he was reading out his play Shakuntala to a gathered audience, he was knifed by an assassin in the crowd.   The assassin’s identity is not known, but at the time of the police's arrival, Kalidasa is found dying in the arms of the prostitute. The woman is arrested, but does not protest her innocence or guilt.  She wordlessly submits to a death sentence in the morning, and has been lodged in jail. However, one of the characters in the play wishes to probe this mystery, and attempts to question the woman.  Simultaneously, two other women arrive in the wake of Kalidasa’s death, and it is revealed that all three women were in love with Kalidasa.  The story of Kalidasa is then pieced together by the narratives of these three women, and in the end, the truth behind the murder is revealed.

 

In sum, it gives us great aesthetic pleasure to read Kalidasa's works.  His descriptions enthrall us.   It's like a flower which, in bloom, spreads its  fragrance all around.   And a man's mature, ripened mind and intellect brings pleasure to those all around him.  In Kalidasa's creations, we enter the world of people pure in mind and body and who are graceful.