{"id":2422,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2422"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:31","slug":"22-kalidasa-the-seasons-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/01-early-cultural-writings\/22-kalidasa-the-seasons-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","title":{"rendered":"-22_Kalidasa -The Seasons.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Seasons <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI
\n<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nITS AUTHENTICITY <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/font>
\n
\nT<\/font>HE "SEASONS"<\/font><\/b> of
\nKalidasa is one of those early works of a great poet which are even more
\ninteresting to a student of his evolution than his later masterpieces. We see
\nhis characteristic gift even in the immature workmanship and
\nuncertain touch and can distinguish the persistent personality in spite of the defective self-expression. Where external record is scanty, this interest is often disturbed by the question of
\nauthenticity, and where there is any excuse for the doubt, it has first to be removed. The impulse which leads us to deny
\nauthenticity to early and immature work, is natural and almost
\ninevitable. When we turn from the great harmonies and victorious imaginations of the master to the raw and perhaps faltering
\nworkmanship of these uncertain beginnings, we are irresistibly
\nimpelled to cry out, “This is not by the same hand.” But the
\nimpulse, however natural, is not always reasonable. The maxim
\nthat a poet is born and not made is only true in the sense that
\ngreat poetical powers are there in the mind of the child, and in
\nthis sense the same remark might be applied with no less truth to
\nevery species of human genius; philosophers, sculptors, painters,
\ncritics, orators, statesmen are all born and not made. But because
\npoetical genius is rarer or at any rate wider and more lasting in
\nits appeal than any other, the popular mind with its ready gift for
\nseizing one aspect of truth out of many and crystallizing error
\ninto the form of a proverb, has exalted the poet into a splendid
\nfreak of Nature exempt from the general law. If a man without
\nthe inborn oratorical fire may be trained into a good speaker or another without the master’s inspiration of form and colour   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 175<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwork out for himself a blameless
\ntechnique, so too may a meagre talent become by diligence a machine for producing elegant
\nverse. But poetic genius needs experience and self-discipline as
\nmuch as any other, and by its very complexity more than most.
\nThis is eminently true of great poets with a varied gift. A narrow
\nthough a high faculty works best on a single line and may show
\nperfection at an early stage; but powerful and complex minds
\nlike Shakespeare or Kalidasa seldom find themselves before a
\nmore advanced period. Their previous work is certain to be full of power, promise and genius, but it will also be flawed, unequal
\nand often imitative. This imperfection arises naturally from the
\ngreater difficulty in imposing the law of harmony of their various
\ngifts on the bodily case which is the instrument of the spirit’s
\nself-expression. To arrive at this harmony requires time and effort,
\nand meanwhile the work will often be halting and unequal,
\nvarying between inspiration expressed and the failure of vision or expression. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere is no more many-sided, rich and flexible genius in
\nliterature than Kalidasa’s, and in
\nhis case especially we must be on our guard against basing denial of
\nauthenticity on imperfection and minor differences. We have to judge, first, by
\nthe presence or absence of the essential and indefinable self of
\nKalidasa which we find apparent in all his indubitable work,
\nhowever various the form or subject, and after that on those
\nnameable characteristics which are the grain and fibre of his
\ngenius and least imitable by others. In the absence of external
\nevidence, which is in itself of little value unless received from
\ndefinite and contemporary or almost contemporary sources, the
\ntest of personality is all-important. Accidents and details are only
\nuseful as corroborative evidence, for these are liable to variation
\nand imitation; but personality is a
\ndistinguishable and permanent presence as fugitive to imitation as to analysis. Even a slight fineness of literary palate can perceive the difference between
\nthe Nalodaya and Kalidasa’s genuine work. Not only does it
\nbelong to an age or school in which poetic taste was debased and
\nartificial, -for it is a poetical counterpart of those prose works for whose existence the display of scholarship seems to be the   <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 176<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nchief justification, -but it presents in this matter of personality
\nand persistent characteristics no sufficient point of contact either
\nwith the Shakuntala or the Kumarasambhava or even with the
\nHouse of Raghu. But in the Seasons, Kalidasa’s personality is
\ndistinctly perceived as well as his main characteristics, his force of vision, his architecture of style, his pervading sensuousness,
\nthe peculiar temperament of his similes, his characteristic strokes of thought and imagination, his individual and inimitable cast of
\ndescription. Much of it is as yet in a half-developed state, crude
\nconsistence not yet fashioned with the masterly touch he soon
\nmanifested, but Kalidasa is there
\nquite as evidently as Shakespeare in his earlier work, the Venus and Adonis or Lucrece.
\nDefects which the riper Kalidasa avoids, are not uncommon in this poem, -repetition of ideas, use of more words than are
\nabsolutely required, haphazard recurrence of words and phrases,
\nnot to produce a designed effect but from carelessness, haste or an insufficient vocabulary; there is moreover a constant sense of
\nuncertainty in the touch and a frequent lack of finished design.
\nThe poet has been in too much haste to vent his sense of poetic
\npower and not sufficiently careful that the expression should be
\nthe best he could compass. And yet immature, greatly inferior in chastity and elegance to his best work, marred by serious
\nfaults of conception, bearing evidence of hurry and slovenliness in the execution, the Seasons is for all this not only suffused by a
\nhigh though unchastened beauty, but marked with many of the
\ndistinctive signs of Kalidasa’s strong and exuberant genius. The
\ndefects are those natural to the early work of a rich sensuous
\ntemperament, eagerly conscious of poetic power but not yet
\ninstructed and chastened. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nII
\n<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE SUBSTANCE OF THE POEM <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nKalidasa’s Seasons is perhaps the first poem in any literature
\nwritten with the express object of
\ndescribing Nature. It is precisely similar in its aim to a well-known eighteenth-century<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 177<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

failure in the same direction -Thomson’s Seasons. The names
\ntally, the forms correspond, both poems adopting the plan of
\ndevoting a canto to each season, and the method so far agrees
\nthat the poets have attempted to
\ndepict each season in its principal peculiarities, scenes and characteristic incidents. But here
\nall parallel ends. Wide as the gulf between the genius of one of
\nthe greatest world-poets and the talent of the eighteenth-century
\nversifier is the difference between
\nthe gathered strength and compact force, the masterly harmonies and the living truth of the
\nancient Indian poem and the diffuse artificiality and rhetoric of
\nthe modern counterpart. And the difference of spirit is not less. A poet of the prosaic and artificial age when the Anglo-Saxon
\nmind emerged in England and got itself Gallicised, Thomson was
\nunable to grasp the first psychological laws of such descriptive
\npoetry. He fixed his eye on the object, but he could only see the
\noutside of it. Instead of creating he tried to photograph. And he did not remember or did not know that Nature is nothing to poetry except in so far as it is either a frame, setting or
\nornament to life or else a living presence to the spirit. Nature
\ninterpreted by Wordsworth as a part of his own and the universal
\nconsciousness, by Shakespeare as an accompaniment or note in
\nthe orchestral music of life, by more modern poets as an element of decoration in the living world-picture is possible in poetry; as an independent but dead existence it has no place either in
\nthe world itself or in the poet’s creation. In his relations to
\nthe external, life and mind are the man, the senses being only
\ninstruments, and what he seeks outside himself is a response in kind to his own deeper reality. What the eye gathers is only
\nimportant in so far as it is related to this real man or helps this
\nexpectation to satisfy itself. Kalidasa with his fine artistic feeling,
\nhis vitality and warm humanism and his profound sense of what
\ntrue poetry must be, appears to have divined from the beginning
\nthe true place of Nature in the poet’s outlook. He is always
\nmore emotional and intellectual than spiritual, like Shakespeare to whom he has so many striking resemblances. We must not
\nexpect from him the magical insight of Valmiki, still less the
\nspiritual discernment of Wordsworth. He looks inside, but not  
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 178<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

too far inside. But he realises always the supreme importance of
\nlife as the only abiding foundation of a poem’s immortality.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

The first canto is surcharged with the life of men and animals
\nand the life of trees and plants in summer. It sets ringing a note of royal power and passion and promises a poem of unexampled
\nvigour and interest. But to play variations on this note through
\nsix cantos seems to have been beyond the young poet’s as yet
\nlimited experience and narrow imaginative mastery. He fell back on the life of sensuous passion with images of which, no doubt,
\nhis ungoverned youth was most
\nfamiliar. But instead of working them into the main thought he turned to them for a prop
\nand, when his imaginative memory failed him, multiplied them to make up the deficiency. This lapse from artistic uprightness
\nbrought its own retribution, as all
\nsuch lapses will. From one error indeed Kalidasa’s vigorous and aspiring temperament saved
\nhim. He never relaxed into the cloying and effeminate languor of sensuous description which offends us in Keats’ earlier work.
\nThe men of the age with all their
\nsensuousness, luxury and worship of outward beauty were a masculine and strenuous race,
\nand their male and vigorous spirit is as prominent in Kalidasa as
\nhis laxer tendencies. His sensuousness is not coupled with weak
\nself-indulgence, but is rather a bold and royal spirit seizing the
\nbeauty and delight of earth to itself and compelling all the senses to minister to the enjoyment of the spirit rather than enslaving
\nthe spirit to do the will of the senses. The difference perhaps
\namounts to no more than a lesser or greater force of vitality,
\nbut it is, for the purposes of
\npoetry, a real and important difference. The spirit of delightful weakness swooning with excessive
\nbeauty gives a peculiar charm of soft laxness to poems like
\nthe Endymion, but it is a weakening charm to which no virile
\ntemperament will trust itself. The poetry of Kalidasa satisfies
\nthe sensuous imagination without enervating the virile chords of character; for virile energy is an unfailing characteristic of
\nthe best Sanskrit poetry, and Kalidasa is inferior to none in this
\nrespect. His artistic error has nevertheless had disastrous effects on the substance of his poem. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

It is written in six cantos answering to the six Indian seasons,   <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 179<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Summer, Rain, Autumn, Winter, Dew and Spring. Nothing can exceed the splendour
\nand power of the opening. We see the poet revelling in the yet virgin boldness,
\nnewness and strength of his genius and confident of winning the kingdom of
\npoetry by violence. For a time the brilliance of his work seems to justify his
\nardour. In the poem on Summer we are at once seized by the marvellous force of
\nimagination, by the unsurpassed closeness and clear strenuousness of his gaze on
\nthe object; in the expression there is a grand and concentrated precision which
\nis our first example of the great Kalidasian manner, and an imperial power,
\nstateliness and brevity of speech which is our first instance of the high
\nclassical diction. But this canto stands on a higher level than the rest of the
\npoem. It is as if the poet had spent the best part of his force in his first
\nenthusiasm and kept back an insufficient reserve for the sustained power proper
\nto a long poem. The decline in energy does not disappoint at first. The poem on
\nthe Rains gives us a number of fine pictures with a less vigorous touch but a
\nmore dignified restraint and a graver and nobler harmony, and even in the
\nAutumn, where the falling off of vigour becomes very noticeable, there is
\ncompensation in a more harmonious finish of style, management and imagery. We
\nare led to believe that the poet is finding himself and will rise to a finale of
\nflawless beauty. Then comes disappointment. In the next two cantos Kalidasa
\nseems to lose hold of the subject; the touches of natural description cease or
\nare, with a few exceptions, perfunctory and even conventional, and the full
\nforce of his genius is thrown into a series of extraordinary pictures, as vivid
\nas if actually executed in line and colour, of feminine beauty and sensuous
\npassion. The two elements, never properly fused, cease even to stand side by
\nside. For all description of Winter we have a few stanzas describing the cold
\nand the appearance of fields, plants, waters in the wintry days, by no means
\ndevoid of beauty but wanting in vigour, closeness of vision and eagerness. In
\nthe poem on Dew-tide the original purpose is even fainter. Perhaps the quietness
\nof these seasons, the absence in them of the most brilliant pictorial effects
\nand grandest distinctive features, made them a subject uninspiring to the unripeness and <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 180<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

love of violence natural to a richly-endowed temperament in
\nits unschooled youth. But the Spring is the royal season of the
\nIndian year and should have lent itself peculiarly to Kalidasa’s
\ninborn passion for colour, sweetness and harmony. The closing
\ncanto should have been the crown of the poem. But the poet’s
\nsin pursues him and, though we see a distinct effort to recover
\nthe old pure fervour, it is an effort that fails to sustain itself.
\nThere is no falling off in harmonious splendour of sound and
\nlanguage, but the soul of inspired poetic observation ceases to
\ninform this beautiful mould and the close fails and languishes. It is noticeable that there is a double close to the Spring, the
\ntwo versions having been left,
\nafter the manner of the old editions, side by side. Kalidasa’s strong artistic perception must
\nhave suffered acutely from the sense of failure in inspiration
\nand he has accordingly attempted to replace the weak close by an improved and fuller cadence. What is we may presume,
\nthe rejected version, is undoubtedly the weaker of the two but
\nneither of them satisfies. The poem on Spring which should
\nhave been the finest, is the most disappointing in the whole
\nseries <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

III <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

ITS POETIC VALUE <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Nevertheless the Seasons is not only an interesting document in
\nthe evolution of a poetic genius of the first rank, but in itself a work of extraordinary force and immense promise. Many of
\nthe most characteristic Kalidasian gifts and tendencies are here, some of them in crude and unformed vigour, but characteristic
\nand unmistakable, giving the poem a striking resemblance of
\nspirit and to some extent of form to the House of Raghu, with a far-off prophecy of the mature manner of Kalidasa in the
\nfour great masterpieces. There is his power of felicitous and vivid simile; there is the individual turn of his conceits and the
\nsingle-minded force with which he drives them home; there is his
\nmastering accuracy and lifelikeness in description conspicuous<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 181<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

especially in the choice and
\nbuilding of the circumstantial epithets. That characteristic of the poet, not the most fundamental
\nand important, which most struck the ancient critics,
\nupamāsu<\/i>
\nkālidāsaḥ<\/i>, Kalidasa for similes, is everywhere present even in such early and immature work, and already they have the sharp
\nclear Kalidasian ring, true coin of his mint though not yet possessed of the later high values. The deep blue midsummer sky is like a rich purple mass of ground collyrium; girls with their smiling faces and lovelit eyes are like “evenings beautifully jewelled with the moon”; the fires burning in the forest look
\nfar-off like clear drops of vermilion; the new blades of grass are
\nlike pieces of split emerald; rivers embracing and tearing down
\nthe trees on their banks are like evil women distracted with
\npassion slaying their lovers. In all these instances we have the
\nKalidasian simile, a little superficial as yet and self-conscious,
\nbut for all that Kalidasian. When again he speaks of the moon
\ntowards dawn growing pale with shame at the lovelier brightness of a woman’s face, of the rains coming like the pomp of some
\ngreat king all blazing with lights, huge clouds moving along like
\nelephants, the lightning like a streaming banner and the thunder
\nlike a peal of drums, of the clouds like archers shooting their
\nrains at the lover from the rainbow stringed with lightning, one
\nrecognises, in spite of the occasional extravagance of phrase and
\nviolent fancifulness, the Kalidasian form of conceit, not only in
\nthe substance which can be borrowed, but in the wording and
\nmost of all in the economy of phrase expressing a lavish and
\ningenious fancy. Still more is this apparent in the sensuous and
\nelaborate comparison of things in
\nNature to women in ornamental attire, -rivers, autumn, the night, the pale priyungou creeper. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Most decisive of all are the strokes of vivid description that
\ngive the poem its main greatness and fulfil its purpose. The seasons live before our eyes as we read. Summer is here with its
\nsweltering heat, the sunbeams burning like fires of sacrifice and
\nthe earth swept with whirling gyres of dust driven by intolerable
\ngusts. Yonder lies the lion forgetting his impulse and his mighty
\nleap; his tongue lolls and wearily from time to time he shakes  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 182<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

his mane; the snake with lowered head panting and dragging his
\ncoils labours over the blazing dust of the road; the wild boars
\nare digging in the dried mud with their long snouts as if they
\nwould burrow their way into the cool earth; the bisons wander
\neverywhere dumbly desiring water. The forests are grim and
\nparched, brown and sere; and before long they are in the clutch of fire…. But the rains come, and what may be yonder writhing
\nlines we see on the slopes? It is the young water of the rains, a
\nnew-born rivulet, grey and full of insects and dust and weeds,
\ncoiling like a snake down the hillside. We watch the beauty of the
\nmountains streaked everywhere with waterfalls, their high rocks
\nkissed by the stooping clouds and their sides a gorgeous chaos of peacocks: on the horizon the great clouds blue as lotus-petals
\nclimb hugely into the sky and move
\nacross it in slow procession before a sluggish breeze. Or look at yonder covidara tree,
\nits branches troubled softly with wind, swarming with honey-drunken bees and its leaves tender with little opening buds. The
\nmoon at night gazes down at us like an unveiled face in the skies,
\nthe racing stream dashes its ripples in the wild-duck’s face, the
\nwind comes trembling through the burdened rice-stalks, dancing
\nwith the crowding courboucs, making one flowery ripple of the
\nlotus-wooded lake. Here there can be no longer any hesitation.
\nThese descriptions which remain perpetually with the eye, visible
\nand concrete as an actual painting, belong, in the force with
\nwhich they are visualised and the magnificent architecture of
\nphrase with which they are presented, to Kalidasa alone among
\nSanskrit poets. Other poets, his successors or imitators, such as
\nBana or even Bhavabhuti, overload their description with words
\nand details; they have often lavish colouring but never an equal
\npower of form; their figures do not appear to stand out of the
\ncanvas and live.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And though we do not find here
\nquite the marvellous harmonies of verse and diction we meet in the Raghu, yet we do come across plenty of preparation for them. Here for instance is a verse whose rapidity and lightness restrained by a certain
\nhalf-hidden gravity is distinctly Kalidasa’s:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 183<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t  <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n

 “Clinging to the woodland edges the forest fire increases with
\nthe wind and burns in the glens of the mountains; it crackles
\nwith shrill shoutings in the dry bamboo reaches; it spreads in
\nthe grasses gathering hugeness in a moment and harasses the
\nbeasts of the wilderness.”
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

And again for honeyed sweetness and buoyancy what can be more Kalidasian than this?
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

“The male cuckoo, drunk with wine of the juice of the mango
\nflower, kisses his beloved, glad of the sweet attraction, and
\nhere the bee murmuring in the lotus-blossom hums flattery’s
\nsweetness to his sweet.”
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There are other stanzas which anticipate something of
\nthe ripest Kalidasian movements by their gravity, suavity and
\nstrength. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

“Making to tremble the flowering branches of the mango trees,
\nspreading the cry of the cuckoo in the regions the wind ranges
\nravishing the hearts of mortals, by the passing of the dewfalls
\ngracious in the springtide.” <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

If we take Kalidasa anywhere in his lighter metres we shall<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 184<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

at once perceive their essential kinship with the verse of the Seasons. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

“Already Love torments my mind importunate in prayer for a
\nthing unattainable; what shall it be when the woodland mango-trees display their buds, a pallid
\nwhiteness opening to the southern wind?” <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

It is the same suave and skilful management, the same
\nexquisite and unobtrusive weaving of labial, dental and liquid
\nassonances with a recurring sibilant note, the same soft and
\nperfect footing of the syllables. Only the language is richer and
\nmore developed. We do not find this peculiar kind of perfection in any other master of classical verse. Bhavabhuti’s manner is
\nbold, strenuous, external; Jayadeva’s music is based palpably
\nupon assonance and alliteration
\nwhich he uses with extraordinary brilliance and builds into the most enchanting melodies,
\nbut without delicacy, restraint or disguise. If there were any
\nreal cause for doubt of the authorship, the verse would clearly
\nvindicate the Seasons for Kalidasa. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Such is this remarkable poem which some, led away by its
\nundoubted splendours, have put in the first rank of Kalidasa’s
\nwork. Its artistic defects and its comparative crudity forbid us to
\nfollow them. It is uncertain in plan, ill-fused, sometimes raw in
\nits imagery, unequal in its execution. But for all that, it must have come upon its contemporaries like the dawning of a new sun in
\nthe skies. Its splendid diction and versification, its vigour, fire
\nand force, its sweetness of spirit and its general promise and to some extent actual presentation of a first-rate poetic genius must
\nhave made it a literary event of the first importance. Especially is it significant in its daring gift of sensuousness. The prophet of a hedonistic civilisation here seizes with no uncertain hand on the materials of his work. A vivid and virile interpretation   <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 185<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

<\/p>\n

of sense-life in Nature, a similar interpretation of all elements of human life capable of greatness or beauty, seen under the
\nlight of the senses and expressed in the terms of an aesthetic
\nappreciation, -this is the spirit of Kalidasa’s first work as it is of his last. At present he is concerned only with the outward
\nbody of Nature, the physical aspects of things, the vital pleasures
\nand emotions, the joy and beauty of the human body; but it is
\nthe first necessary step on the long road of sensuous and poetic
\nexperience and expression he has to travel before he reaches his
\ngoal in his crowning work, the Birth of the War-God, in which he takes up for treatment one of the supreme fables of the life of
\nthe Gods and the Cosmos and in its handling combines sublimity
\nwith grace, height of speech with
\nfullness and beautiful harmony of sound, boldness of descriptive line with
\nmagnificence of sensuous colour in a degree of perfection never before or afterwards
\nsurpassed or even equalled in poetic literature.  <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 186<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

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The Seasons   I   ITS AUTHENTICITY   THE "SEASONS" of Kalidasa is one of those early works of a great poet which are even…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-early-cultural-writings","wpcat-49-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}