{"id":2425,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2425"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:32","slug":"25-kalidasa-vikramorvasie-the-caracters-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\/25-kalidasa-vikramorvasie-the-caracters-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","title":{"rendered":"-25_Kalidasa – Vikramorvasie – The Caracters.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\n
\nVikramorvasie
\n<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Characters <\/span><\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPururavus is the poet’s second study of kinghood; he differs
\nsubstantially from Agnimitra. The latter is a prince, a soldier
\n& man of the world yielding by the way to the allurements of beauty, but not preoccupied with passion; the subtitle of the
\npiece might be, in a more innocent sense than Victor Hugo’s, <\/span>
\n“Le Roi s’amuse”<\/span>. He is the mirror of a courteous & self-possessed gentleman, full of mildness & grace, princely tact, savoir-faire,
\nindulgent kindliness, yet energetic withal & quietly resolute in
\nhis pleasure as well as in his serious affairs. “Ah, Sire” says
\nDharinie with sharp irony “if you only showed as much diplomatic skill & savoir-faire in the affairs of your kingdom, what a good thing it would be”. But one feels that these are precisely
\nthe gifts he would show in all his action, that the innocently
\nunscrupulous & quite delightful tact & diplomacy with which
\nhe pursues his love-affair is but the mirror of the methods he
\npursued in domestic politics. We see in him the typical & ideal
\nking of an age hedonistic, poetic, worldly but withal heroic &
\ncapable. Pururavus is made of very different material. He is
\na king and a hero, a man of high social & princely virtues,
\notherwise Kalidasa would not have taken the trouble to depict
\nhim; but these qualities are like splendid robes which his nature has put on, & which have become so natural to him that
\nhe cannot put them off if he would; they are not the naked
\nessential man. The fundamental Pururavus is not the king and
\nthe hero but the poet & lover. The poet on a throne has been
\nthe theme of Shakespeare in his Richard II and of Renan in his  Ant\u00e9christ; and from these two great studies we can realise the European view of the phenomenon. To the European mind the
\nmeeting of poet & king in one man wears always the appearance
\nof an anomaly, a misplacement, the very qualities which have fitted him to be a poet unfit him to rule. A mastering egotism
\n  
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\n becomes the mainspring of the poetic
\ntemperament so placed; the imagination of the man is centred in himself, and the
\nrealm & people whose destinies are in his hands, seem to him to be created only
\nto minister to his ingenious or soaring fancies & his dramatic, epic or
\nidealistic sense of what should be; his intellect lives in a poetic world of its
\nown and thinks in tropes & figures instead of grappling with the concrete facts
\nof the earth; hence he is unfitted for action and once absolute power is out of
\nhis hands, once he is no longer able to arrange men & events to his liking as if
\nhe were a dramatist manoeuvring the creatures of his brain but is called upon to
\nmeasure his will & ability against others, he fails & his failure leads to
\ntragic issues; for he persists in attempting to weave his own imaginations into
\nlife; he will not see facts; he will not recognize the inexorable logic of
\nevents. Hence, though not necessarily a coward, though often a man of real
\ncourage & even ability, he plays the part of an incompetent or a weakling or
\nboth. Moreover he tends to become a tyrant, to lose moral perspective & often
\nall sense of proportion and sanity; for he regards himself as the centre of a
\ngreat drama, and to all who will not play the part he assigns them and satisfy
\nhis emotional needs & impulses, to all who get in the way of his imaginative
\negotism he becomes savage & cruel; his rage when a word of his life-drama is
\nmispronounced or a part ill-studied or a conception not complied with is a
\nmagnified reflection of the vexation felt by a dramatist at a similar
\ncontretemps in the performance of his darling piece; and unfortunately unlike
\nthe playwright he has the power to vent his indignation on the luckless
\noffenders in a fashion only too effective. The last end of the poet-king is
\nalmost always tragic, the madhouse, the prison, suicide, exile or the dagger of
\nthe assassin. It must be admitted that this dramatic picture largely reflects
\nthe facts of history. We know some instances of poet-kings in history, Nero &
\nLudwig of Bavaria were extreme instances; but we have a far more interesting because typical series in the history of the British isles. The
\nStuarts were a race of born poets whom the irony of their fate
\ninsisted upon placing one after the other upon a throne; with
\nthe single exception of Charles II (James VI was a pedant, which  
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\nfor practical purposes is as bad as a poet) they were all men of an imaginative temper, artistic tastes & impossible ideals, and
\nthe best of them had in a wonderful degree the poet’s faculty of imparting this enthusiasm to others. The terrible fate which
\ndogged them was no mysterious doom of the Atridae, but the natural inexorable result of the incompatibility between their
\ntemperament & their position. Charles II was the only capable man in his line, the only one who set before him a worldly &
\nunideal aim & recognising facts & using the only possible ways & means quietly & patiently accomplished it. The first James had some practical energy, but it was marred by the political
\nidealism, the disregard of a wise opportunism and the tyrannical
\nseverity towards those who thwarted him which distinguished
\nhis whole dreamy, fascinating & utterly unpractical race. Nor
\nis the type wanting in Indian History. Sriharsha of Cashmere in the pages of Kalhana
\naffords a most typical picture of the same unhappy temperament. It is
\ninteresting therefore to see how Kalidasa dealt with a similar character. To our
\nsurprise we find that the Hindu poet does not associate incompetence, failure &
\ntragedy with his image of the poet-king; on the contrary Pururavus is a Great Emperor, well-loved of his people, an unconquered hero, the valued ally of the Gods, successful in
\nempire, successful in war, successful in love. Was then Kalidasa at
\nfault in his knowledge of the world and of human nature? Such
\na solution would be inconsistent with all we know of the poet’s
\ngenius as shown in his other work. The truth is that Kalidasa
\nsimply gives us the other side of the shield. It is not an invariable
\nlaw of human nature that the poetic temperament should be
\nby its nature absolutely unfitted for practical action & regal
\npower. Nero & Charles I were artistic temperaments cursed with
\nthe doom of kingship. But Alexander of Macedon & Napoleon
\nBuonaparte were poets on a throne, and the part they played
\nin history was not that of incompetents & weaklings. There are
\ntimes when Nature gifts the poetic temperament with a peculiar
\ngrasp of the conditions of action and an irresistible tendency to
\ncreate their poems not in ink & on paper, but in living characters
\n& on the great canvas of the world; such men become portents  
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\n& wonders, whom posterity admires or hates but can only imperfectly understand.
\nLike Joan of Arc or Mazzini & Garibaldi they save a dying nation, or like
\nNapoleon & Alexander they dominate a world. They are only possible because they
\nonly get full scope in races which unite with an ardent & heroic temperament a keen susceptibility to poetry in life, idealism, & hero
\nworship. Now the Hindus, before the fibre of their temperament had been loosened by hedonistic materialism on the one side &
\nBuddhistic impracticability on the other, were not only the most
\nardent & idealistic race in the world, the most ready to put
\nprose behind them, the most dominated by thought & imagination, but also one of
\nthe most heroic, and they still preserved much of this ancient temper in the
\ndays of Kalidasa. It was only natural therefore that the national dramatist in
\nrepresenting the great legendary founder of the Kurus as of the poet-emperor
\ntype, should mould him of stronger make & material & not as one of the beautiful
\nporcelain vessels that are broken. Yet always, even when gifted with the most
\nextraordinary practical abilities, the poetic temperament remains itself and
\nkeeps a flaw of weakness in the heart of its strength. The temperaments of
\nAlexander & Napoleon were both marked by megalomania, gigantic imaginations,
\nimpossible ideals; though not wantonly cruel or tyrannical, they at times showed
\na singular insensibility to moral restraints and the demands of generous &
\nhumane feeling; especially in times of abnormal excitement or temporary indulgence of their passions, the birthmark came out and
\nshowed itself in acts of often insane tyranny. This was especially
\nthe case with Alexander; but Napoleon was not free from the
\nsame taint. Alexander, we know, strove consciously to mould his
\nlife into an Iliad; Napoleon regarded his as a Titanic epic and
\nwhen facts would not fit in ideally with his conception of himself as its great protagonist, he would alter & falsify them with as
\nlittle scruple as a dramatist would feel in dealing licentiously
\nwith the facts of history. All men of this type, moreover, show a
\nstrange visionary impracticability in the midst of their practical
\nenergy & success, make huge miscalculations & refuse to receive
\ncorrection, insist that facts shall mould themselves according to  
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\ntheir own imaginations and are usually dominated by an unconquerable egoism or self-absorption which is not necessarily base
\nor selfish; their success seems as much the result of a favouring destiny as of their own ability & when the favour is withdrawn, they collapse like a house of cards at one blow. Joan of Arc
\ndreamed dreams & saw visions, Mazzini & Garibaldi were impracticable idealists and hated Cavour because he would not
\nidealise along with them. The rock of St Helena, the blazing
\nstake at Rouen, the lifelong impotent exile of Mazzini, the field of [   ]1<\/font><\/sup> & the island of Caprera, such is the latter end
\nof these great spirits. Alexander was more fortunate, but his greatest good fortune was that he died young; his next greatest
\nthat the practical commonsense of his followers prevented him
\nfrom crossing the Ganges; had Napoleon been similarly forced to recognise his limit, his end might have been as great as his beginning. Pururavus in the play is equally fortunate; we feel
\nthroughout that the power & favour of the Gods is at his back
\nto save him from all evil fortune and the limits of a legend help him as effectually as an early death helped Alexander.
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nKalidasa’s presentation of Pururavus therefore is not that of a poetic nature in a false position working out its own ruin; it
\nis rather a study of the poetic temperament in a heroic & royal figure for no issue beyond the study itself. This is in accordance
\nwith the temper of the later poetry which, as I have said, troubles
\nitself little with problems, issues & the rest, but is purely romantic, existing only to express disinterested delight in the beauty of human life & emotion & the life & emotion of animate &
\ninanimate Nature.
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nWhen Pururavus first appears on the scene it is as the king
\nand hero, the man of prompt courage and action, playing the
\npart which he has assumed like a royal robe of purple; but
\nit is not in the practical side of his character that Kalidasa is
\ninterested. He has to introduce it only as a background to his
\ninner temperament, in order to save him from the appearance <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1
\nBlank in manuscript. Apparently Aspromonte or Mentana, sites of defeats suffered by Garibaldi, was intended.
\n\u2014  Ed.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\nof frivolous weakness & unworthiness which always surrounds the dilettante in life, the epicure of his own emotions. This he
\ndoes with his usual consummate art. Pururavus is introduced to us at the very beginning in a scene of extraordinary swiftness,
\ndecision & tumultuous excitement like an eagle cleaving the
\nwinds in the rushing swoop upon his prey. The remembrance of
\nthis rapid & heroic episode lingers with us & gives us a sense of concealed iron behind his most feminine moods as lover &
\npoet. Then again at the end of the play Kalidasa skilfully strikes the same note & when we take leave of the Ilian it is again as the King & hero whose strong arm is needed by the Gods in
\ntheir approaching war with the Titans. Thus finding & leaving
\nhim as the warlike prince, we always have the impression that
\nhowever great the part played by his love for Urvasie in his life,
\nit is not the whole; that we are listening only to a love episode in some high epic. This impression again is skilfully aided by brief but telling touches in each Act, such as the song of the
\nBards, for example, which remind us of the King of Kings, the
\ntoiling administrator & the great warrior; in not a single Act are
\nthese necessary strokes omitted & the art with which they are
\nintroduced naturally & as if without design is beyond praise. But
\nhere again Kalidasa does not depart from his artistic principle
\nof “nothing too much, nothing too little”; the purple robes of
\nthe Emperor and the bow of the hero being needed only for the
\nbackground are not allowed to intrude upon the main interest,
\nwhich is Pururavus the man in his native temperament.
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nFrom the very first utterance that temperament reveals itself;
\nthe grandiose & confident announcement of his name & his
\ncommunion with the Gods is characteristic of the epic megalomaniac; we are not
\ndeceived by his proud assumption of modesty, which he only wears as a fit outward ornament of the role he is playing on the world’s stage, part of the conventional drapery
\nof the heroic king. “For modesty was ever valour’s crown.” Through this drapery we see the man glorying in himself as a
\npoet might glory in some great creation & when madness has
\nremoved all conventional disguise, his temper breaks out with
\nthe most splendid frankness. We see his mind empurpled with   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\nthe consciousness of his worldwide fame, “This is too much; it is not possible he should not know me”; of his marvellous birth “the grandson to the Sun & Moon”; of his matchless
\nachievements as “the chariot-warrior, great Pururavus”; of his
\nmighty empire, “the universal sceptre of the world and sovran footstool touched by jewelled heads of tributary monarchs”. The glory of this triple purple in which he has wrapped himself,
\nmatchless valour, matchless fame, matchless empire, dominates his imagination, and he speaks in the proud brief language of
\nthe hero but with an evident consciousness of their fine suitability to the part. We seem to see Napoleon
\nrobbing himself in the dramatic splendour of his despatches and proclamations or Alexander dragging Batis at his chariot wheels in order that he may feel himself to be Achilles. Shall we accuse these men as
\nsome do of being liars, theatrical braggarts, inhuman madmen, mountebanks? Let us not so in our feeble envy spit our venom on
\nthese mighty souls to half whose heights we could never rise even if we have no opportunity given us of sinking to their depths!
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd then as he rushes in pursuit of the Titan and revels in
\nthe speed of his chariot and the scenic splendour of the crumbling thunderclouds flying up like dust beneath it, all the poet in him breaks out into glories of speech. Surely no king before
\nor after, not even Richard II, had such a royal gift of language as this grandson of the Sun & Moon. It is peculiar to him in the
\nplay. Others, especially those who habitually move near him,
\nManavaca, the Chamberlain, the Huntsman, the Charioteer,
\ncatch something at times of his enthusiastic poetry, but their
\ndiction is usually simple & unpretending and when it is most
\nambitious pale to the colour, energy & imaginativeness which floods all his utterance. For example in the scene of the vulture how he catches fire from a single trope of the Huntsman’s and
\nhis imagination continues coruscating & flashing over the jewel
\nuntil it has vanished from sight. I have said that his imagination has become empurpled; but the tendency is really inborn in him;
\nhe sees, thinks & speaks in purple. Not only is his mind stored
\nwith pictures which break out in the most splendid tropes and
\nsimiles, but he cannot see any natural object or feel any simplest   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\nemotion without bathing it in the brilliant tones of his imagination & expressing it in regal poetry. He has also the poet’s close
\n& inspired observation, the poet’s visualising power, the poet’s sensuousness & aim at the concrete. Little things that he has
\nseen in Nature, a portion of the bank of a river collapsing into
\nthe current, the rapid brightening of a dark night by the moon,
\nfire at night breaking its way through a volume of smoke, a lotus
\nreddening in early sunlight, a wild swan flying through the sky
\nwith a lotus fibre in his beak, remain with his inner eye and at a touch burst out in poetry. So inveterate is this habit of seizing on
\nevery situation & emotion & turning it into a poem, that even
\nwhen he affects a feeling as in his flattery of the queen, he takes
\nfire & acts his part with a glory & fervour of speech which make the feigned emotion momentarily genuine. Thus with a mind stored & brimming with poetry, a habit of speech of royal
\nsplendour & fullness and an imagination fired & enlarged by the unequalled grandeur of his own destiny, Pururavus comes to the
\ngreat event which shall be the touchstone of his nature. Such a
\nman was alone fit to aspire to & win the incarnate Beauty of
\nthe world & of its sensuous life, the Opsara who sprang from the thigh of the Supreme. The Urvasie of the myth, as has been
\nsplendidly seen & expressed by a recent Bengali poet, is the Spirit
\nof imaginative beauty in the Universe, the unattainable ideal for
\nwhich the soul of man is eternally panting, the goddess adored of
\nthe nympholept in all lands & in all ages. There is but one who can attain her, the man whose mind has become one mass of poetry & idealism and has made life itself identical with poetry,
\nwhose glorious & starlike career has itself been a conscious epic and whose soul holds friendship & close converse with the Gods.
\nThis is Pururavus, “the noise of whom has gone far & wide”,
\nwhose mother was Ida, divine aspiration, the strange daughter of human mind (Manu) who was once male & is female, and
\nhis father Budha, Hermes of the moonlike mind, inspired & mystic wisdom, and his near ancestors therefore are the Sun
\n& Moon. For Urvasie he leaves his human wife, earthly fame & desire, giving her only the passionless kindness which duty
\ndemands & absorbs his whole real soul in the divine. Even he,  
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\nhowever, does not enjoy uninterrupted the object of his desire; he transgresses with her into that fatal grove of the Virgin
\nWar-God where ethereal beauty & delight are not suffered to tread
\nbut only ascetic self-denial & keen swordlike practical will; at once she disappears from his ken. Then must his soul wander
\nthrough all Nature seeking her, imagining her or hints & tokens
\nof her in everything he meets, but never grasping unless by some
\ngood chance he accept the Jewel Union born from the crimson
\non the marvellous feet of Himaloy’s Child, Uma, daughter of the mountains, the Mighty Mother, She who is the Soul behind
\nNature. Then he is again united with her and their child is Ayus, human life & action glorified & ennobled by contact with the
\ndivine. It is therefore one of the most profound & splendid of
\nthe many profound & splendid allegories in the great repertory
\nof Hindu myth that Kalidasa has here rendered into so sweet,
\nnatural & passionate a story of human love & desire. [The
\nreligious interpretation of the myth, which is probably older
\nthan the poetical, is slightly but not materially different.]2<\/font><\/sup> <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn one sense therefore the whole previous life of Pururavus has been a preparation for his meeting with Urvasie. He has
\nfilled earth & heaven even as he has filled his own imagination
\nwith the splendour of his life as with an epic poem, he has become indeed Pururavus, he who is noised afar; but he has
\nnever yet felt his own soul. Now he sees Urvasie and all the
\nforce of his nature pours itself into his love for her like a river
\nwhich has at last found its natural sea. The rich poetry of his
\ntemperament, the sights & images with which his memory is
\nstored, his dramatic delight in his own glory & greatness &
\nheroism, are now diverted & poured over this final passion of
\nhis life, coruscate & light it up & reveal it as in a wonderful
\nfaeryland full of shimmering moonlight. Each thought, image,
\nemotion of his mind as it issues forth, connects itself with his
\nlove and for a moment stands illumined in the lustre of his own speech. The same extraordinary vividness of feeling &
\nimagination is poured over Ayus when Pururavus finds himself <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n2 The square brackets are Sri Aurobindo’s.
\n\u2014  Ed.
\n   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\na father; never has the passion of paternity been expressed with such vivid concreteness or with such ardent sensuousness of feeling. Yet the conventions of life & the dramatic part in it he
\nfeels bound to sustain cling about him and hamper his complete
\nutterance. In order therefore to give him his full opportunity,
\nKalidasa has separated him from Urvasie by a more romantic
\ndevice than the dramatically unmanageable contrivance of the
\noriginal legend, and liberated him into the infinite freedom of
\nmadness. The fourth Act therefore which seems at first sight episodical, is
\nreally of essential importance both to the conduct of the play & the full
\nrevelation of its protagonist. <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nYet madness is hardly the precise word for the
\ncondition of Pururavus; he is not mad like Lear or Ophelia;3<\/font><\/sup> it is rather a
\ntemporary exaltation than a perversion or aberration from his natural state. An
\nextraordinarily vivid & active imagination which has always felt a poetic sense
\nof mind & sympathy in brute life & in "inanimate" Nature leaps up under the
\nshock of sudden & inexplicable loss & the encouragement of romantic surroundings
\ninto gigantic proportions; it is like a sudden conflagration in a forest which transfigures & magnifies every petty
\nobject it enlightens and fills the world with the rush & roar &
\nvolume of its progress. The whole essential temperament of the
\nman comes whirling out in a gyrating pomp of tropes, fancies,
\nconceits, quick & changing emotions; everything in existence he
\ngifts with his own mind, speech, feelings and thus moves through
\nthe pageantry of Nature draping it in the regal mantle of his
\nimagination until the whole world exists only to be the scene & witness of his sorrow. For splendour of mere poetry united with delicate art of restraint and management, this scene is not
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n3
\nSri Aurobindo wrote the following passage on a separate page of the manuscript used for this essay. He did not mark its place of insertion:
\n<\/i>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nThat accomplished scholar & litterateur Prof Wilson in introducing the Vicramorvaseum to English readers, is at pains to inform them that in the “mad scene” of this
\nplay they must not expect the sublime madness of King Lear, but a much tamer affair
\nconformable to the mild, domestic & featureless Hindu character & the feebler pitch of
\nHindu poetic genius. The good Professor might have spared himself the trouble. Beyond
\nthe fact that both Lear & Pururavus go about raving in a storm, there is no point of
\ncontact between the two dramas.
\n  
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n
\neasily surpassed. We may note one of the smaller & yet essential
\nfeatures of its beauty, the skill with which the gradations of his
\nexcitement are indicated. When he first rushes in he is in the very
\nheight & tumult of it mistaking the cloud for a Titan who carries
\noff his Urvasie and threatening him with a clod of earth which he imagines to be a deadly weapon. But he is not really mad;
\nthe next moment he realises his hallucination, and the reaction produces a certain calming down of the fever; yet his mind is still
\nworking tumultuously & as he ranges through the forest, every
\nobject is converted for a moment into a sign of Urvasie and the
\nmegalomaniac in him bursts out into the most splendid flights of self-magnification. But each fresh disappointment brings a
\nreaction that sobers him just a little more; he turns from the
\ninanimate objects of nature to the bee in the flower, then to
\nthe birds, then to the beasts; he gifts them with a voice, with
\narticulate words, with thoughts lent out of the inexhaustible
\ntreasury of his teeming imagination. Next he appeals to the God of the mountain and fancies the Echo to be his answer. Mark that
\nnow for the first time it is a real articulate voice that he hears,
\nthough but the reflection of his own. Immediately afterwards
\nhis mind coming nearer & nearer to sanity, hits upon something
\nvery close to the truth; he realises that a divine force may have transformed her to some object of nature & at first by a natural
\nmisapprehension imagines that it must be the river which has the
\nappearance Urvasie wore when she fled from him. Then reason as it returns tells him that if he wishes to find her, it must be
\nnearer the place where she disappeared. As he hurries back, he
\nappeals for the last time to an animal to speak to him, but does
\nnot lend him a voice or words; again also he sees tokens of her in flower & tree, but they are no longer hallucinations but real
\nor at least possible tokens. He touches the Jewel Union & hears
\nthe actual voice of the sage; he is now perfectly restored to his
\nnormal state of mind & when he embraces the creeper, it is not as Urvasie but as an “imitatress of my beloved”. Through the rest of the scene it is the old natural Pururavus we hear though in his most delicate flights of imagination. What a choice of a
\n“conveyance” is that with which the scene closes & who but  
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\nPururavus could have imagined it? I dwell on these subtle and
\njust perceptible features of Kalidasa’s work, the art concealing
\nart, because the appreciation of them is necessary to the full
\nreception on our mind-canvas of Kalidasa’s art & genius and
\ntherefore to the full enjoyment of his poetry.
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nAnd while Pururavus glorifies & revels in his passion, he
\nis also revealed by it; and not only in the strength of the poetic
\ntemperament at its strongest, its grasp of, devotion to & joy in its
\nobject, its puissant idealism & energy & the dynamic force with
\nwhich for a time at least it compels fate to its will, but also in its
\nweaknesses. I have spoken of his self-magnification & touches of megalomania. There is besides this a singular incompetence
\nor paralysis of activity in occasional emergencies which, as I
\nhave before suggested, often overtakes the poetic temperament
\nin action even in its most capable possessors. His helplessness
\nwhen confronted by Aushinarie compares badly with the quiet self-possession & indulgent smile with which Agnimitra faces
\nIravatie in a much more compromising situation. Characteristic
\ntoo is his conduct when the jewel is lost. We feel certain that
\nAgnimitra when rushing out of his tent would have caught up
\nhis bow & arrows & and shot the thief on the spot; Pururavus
\noccupies time in pouring out splendid tropes & similes over
\nthe bird & the jewel and appeals helplessly to Manavaca for advice. This is characteristic of the poetic temperament whose
\nmind has long trained itself to throw out its imagination to meet every new object or situation and not its acting faculties;
\nexcept in natures of a very firm balance the habit must lead to
\nparalysis of the will. Such a sapping of vigour has been going on
\nin Pururavus during the long years of absorption in his romantic passion.4<\/font><\/sup>
\nOne must hope that when he stands again in the
\nforefront of battle “Heaven’s great soldier” will have sufficient
\nelasticity of character to recover in the shock of action what
\nhe has lost in the peace of the seraglio. Then there are certain
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n4 Alternative to this sentence:
\n<\/i>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis growing incompetence is the result of vigour being sapped by long indulgence in the poetical sensibilities to the comparative exclusion of the practical side of the temperament.  
\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n207<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmoral insensibilities, certain feelings which seem to have been <\/span><\/font>
\n
\n\t\t\tleft out in his composition. It is part of his self-assumed role in life to be the ideal king, the mirror of gallantry & conjugal
\nduty, the champion of the gods & of religion. Yet it is Urvasie
\nand not he who remembers that his “high capital awaits him
\nlong” and who shrinks from the displeasure of the people. He
\nexhibits deference & a show of love to Aushinarie because he
\n“owes” her respect & affection, but in spite of his glowing language and fine acting we feel that he cherishes towards her none
\nof the genuine respect & affection or of the real & indulgent
\nkindliness Agnimitra feels for Dharinie & Iravatie. In the last
\nAct he expresses some fear that he may lose religious calm; one
\nfeels that religious calm in Pururavus must have been something
\nlike the King’s robe in Hans Andersen’s story. But it was one of
\nthe necessary “belongings” of the great semi-divine king which
\nPururavus considered his “part” in life, just as impassive calm & insensibility to human misfortune & grief was one of the
\nnecessary “belongings” of the great demigod, the human Jove
\nwhich Napoleon thought to be his destined role. If that vast, flaming and rushing mass of genius & impetuosity which we
\ncall Napoleon was incompatible with stoical calm & insensibility, so was the ardent mass of sensuousness & imagination
\nwhich Kalidasa portrayed in Pururavus incompatible with the
\nhigh austerity of religion. It is in the mouth of this champion
\nof Heaven Kalidasa has placed one of the few explicit protests in Sanscrit of the ordinary sensuous man against the ascetic
\nidealism of the old religion
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tAnd yet I cannot think of her
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tCreated by a withered hermit cold.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tHow could an aged anchoret dull & stale
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tWith poring over Scripture & oblivious <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tTo all this rapture of the senses build
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tA thing so lovely? <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThe minor male characters of the piece look too wan in the
\nblaze of this great central figure to command much attention
\nexcept as his adjuncts. As such the Charioteer, the Huntsman &
\n   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n208<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\tthe Chamberlain, Latavya, appear; the former two merely cross
\nthe stage and are only interesting for the shadow of tropical
\nmagnificence that their master’s personality has thrown over
\ntheir mode of speech.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tIn nothing does the delicacy & keen suavity of Kalidasa’s dramatic genius exhibit itself with a more constant & instinctive
\nperfection than in his characterisation of women. He may sometimes not care to individualise his most unimportant male figures, but even the slightest of his women have some personality of their own, something which differentiates them from others &
\nmakes them better than mere names. Insight into feminine character is extraordinarily rare even among dramatists for whom
\none might think it to be a necessary element of their art. For
\nthe most part a poet represents with success only one or two
\nunusual types known to him or in sympathy with his own temperament or those which are quite abnormal and therefore easily
\ndrawn; the latter are generally bad women, the Clytaemnestras,
\nVittoria Corombonas, Beatrice Joannas. The women of Vyasa
\n& of Sophocles have all a family resemblance; all possess a quiet or commanding masculine strength of character which reveals
\ntheir parentage. Other poets we see succeeding in a single feminine character & often repeating it but failing or not succeeding
\neminently in the rest. Otherwise women in poetry are generally
\npainted very much from the outside. The poets who have had an
\ninstinctive insight into women, can literally be counted on the fingers of one hand. Shakespeare in this as in other dramatic gifts
\nis splendidly & unapproachably first or at least only equalled in
\ndepth though not in range by Valmekie; Racine has the same gift
\nwithin his limits & Kalidasa without limits, though in this as in
\nother respects he has not Shakespeare’s prodigal abundance and
\npuissant variety. Other names I do not remember. There are a
\nfew poets who succeed with coarse easy types, but this is the
\nfruit [of] observation rather than an unfailing intuitive gift. The
\nAgnimitra is a drama of women; it passes within the women’s
\napartments and pleasure gardens of a great palace and is full of
\nthe rustling of women’s robes, the tinkling of their ornaments,
\n  
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n209<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\tthe scent of their hair, the music of their voices. In the Urvasie
\nwhere he needs at least half the canvas for his hero, the scope for
\nfeminine characterisation is of necessity greatly contracted, but
\nwhat is left Kalidasa has filled in with a crowd of beautiful &
\nshining figures & exquisite faces each of which is recognizable.
\nThese are the Opsaras and Urvasie the most beautiful of them all.
\nTo understand the poetry & appeal of these nymphs of heaven, we must know something of their origin & meaning.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tIn the beginning of things, in the great wide spaces of Time
\nwhen mankind as yet was young and the azure heavens & the
\ninterregions between the stars were full of the crowding figures of luminous Gods & gigantic Titans by the collision of whose
\nactivities the cosmos was taking form & shape, the opposing
\nforces once made a truce and met in common action on the waves
\nof the milky ocean. The object for which they had met could not
\nhave been fulfilled by the efforts of one side alone; good must
\nmingle with evil, the ideal take sides with the real, the soul work in harmony with the senses, virtue & sin, heaven & earth & hell
\nlabour towards a common end before it can be accomplished; for
\nthis object was no less than to evolve all that is beautiful & sweet
\n& incredible in life, all that makes it something more than mere
\nexistence; and in especial to realise immortality, that marvellous
\nthought which has affected those even who disbelieve in it, with
\nthe idea of unending effort and thus lured men on from height
\nto height, from progress to progress, until mere beast though he is in his body & his sensations, he has with the higher part
\nof himself laid hold upon the most distant heavens. Therefore
\nthey stood by the shore of the milky Ocean and cast into it
\nthe mountain Mundara for a churning stick and wound round it Vasuqie, the Great Serpent, the snake of desire, for the rope
\nof the churning and then they set to with a will, god & devil
\ntogether, and churned the milky ocean, the ocean of spiritual
\nexistence, the ocean of imagination & aspiration, the ocean of
\nall in man that is above the mere body and the mere life.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThey churned for century after century, for millennium upon
\nmillennium and yet there was no sign of the nectar of immortality. Only the milky ocean swirled & lashed & roared, like   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n210<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\ta thing tortured, and the snake Vasuqie in his anguish began to faint & hang down his numberless heads hissing with pain
\nover the waves and from the lolling forked tongues a poison
\nstreamed out & mingled with the anguish of the ocean so that it
\nbecame like a devastating fire. Never was poison so terrible for it contained in itself all the long horror & agony of the ages, all
\nthe pain of life, its tears & cruelty & despair & rage & madness,
\nthe darkness of disbelief & the grey pain of disillusionment, all
\nthe demoniac & brute beast that is in man, his lust & his tyranny & his evil joy in the sufferings of his fellows. Before that poison
\nno creature could stand and the world began to shrivel in the
\nheat of it. Then the Gods fled to Shankara where he abode in
\nthe ice and snow & the iron silence & inhuman solitudes of the
\nmountains where the Ganges streams through his matted locks;
\nfor who could face the fire of that poison? who but the great
\nascetic Spirit clothed in ashes who knows not desire and sorrow,
\nto whom terror is not terrible & grief has no sting, but who
\nembraces grief & madness & despair and5<\/font><\/sup> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tAnd now wonderful things began to arise from the Ocean; Ucchaisravus arose, neighing & tossing his mighty mane, he who
\ncan gallop over all space in one moment while hooves make
\nmusic in the empyrean; Varunie arose, Venus Anadyomene from
\nthe waters, the daughter of Varuna, Venus Ourania, standing on a lotus & bringing beauty, delight and harmony & all opulence
\ninto the universe; Dhunwuntari arose, cup in hand, the physician of the Gods, who can heal all pain & disease & sorrow, minister
\nto a mind diseased & pluck out from the bosom its rooted
\nsorrow; the jewel Kaustubha arose whose pure luminousness
\nfills all the world & worn on the bosom of the Saviour & helper becomes the cynosure of the suffering & striving nations;6<\/font><\/sup> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThere is nothing more charming, more attractive in Kalidasa
\nthan his instinct for sweet & human beauty; everything he
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t5 Here there is an abrupt break in the text. \u2014  Ed. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t6 Here there is another abrupt break with nothing to link this paragraph to what follows.
\n\t\t\t\u2014  Ed.   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n211<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\ttouches becomes the inhabitant of a moonlit world of romance
\nand yet \u2014  there is the unique gift, the consummate poetry \u2014 
\nremains perfectly natural, perfectly near to us, perfectly human.
\nShelley’s Witch of Atlas & Keats’ Cynthia are certainly lovely
\ncreations, but they do not live; misty, shimmering, uncertain
\nbeings seen in some half dream when the moon is full and strange
\nindefinable figures begin to come out from the skirts of the forest,
\nthey charm our imagination but our hearts take no interest in
\nthem. They are the creations of the mystic Celtic imagination
\nwith its singular intangibility, its fascinating otherworldliness.
\nThe Hindu has been always decried as a dreamer & mystic.
\nThere is truth in the charge but also a singular inaccuracy. The
\nHindu mind is in one sense the most concrete in the world; it seeks after abstractions, but is not satisfied with them so long as
\nthey remain abstractions. But to make the objects of this world
\nconcrete, to realise the things that are visited by sun & rain
\nor are, at their most ethereal, sublimated figures of fine matter,
\nthat is comparatively easy, but the Hindu is not contented till he
\nhas seized things behind the sunlight also as concrete realities. He is passionate for the infinite, the unseen, the spiritual, but
\nhe will not rest satisfied with conceiving them, he insists on
\nmapping the infinite, on seeing the unseen, on visualising the
\nspiritual. The Celt throws his imagination into the infinite and is rewarded with beautiful phantoms out of which he evolves a
\npale, mystic and intangible poetry; the Hindu sends his heart &
\nhis intellect & eventually his whole being after his imagination
\nand for his reward he has seen God and interpreted existence. It is this double aspect of Hindu temperament, extreme spirituality successfully attempting to work in harmony with extreme
\nmaterialism, which is the secret of our religion, our life & our
\nliterature, our civilisation. On the one side we spiritualise the
\nmaterial out of all but a phenomenal & illusory existence, on
\nthe other we materialise the spiritual in the most definite &
\nrealistic forms; this is the secret of the high philosophic idealism
\nwhich to the less capable European mind seems so impossible an intellectual atmosphere and of the prolific idolatry which to
\nthe dogmatic & formalising Christian reason seems so gross.   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n212<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\tIn any other race-temperament this mental division would have
\nsplit into two broadly disparate & opposing types whose action,
\nreaction & attempts at compromise would have comprised the
\nhistory of thought. In the myriad minded & undogmatic Hindu
\nit worked not towards mental division but as the first discord
\nwhich prepares for a consistent harmony; the best & most characteristic Hindu thought regards either tendency as essential to the perfect & subtle comprehension of existence; they are
\nconsidered the positive & negative sides of one truth, & must
\nboth be grasped if we are not to rest in a half light. Hence the
\nentire tolerance of the Hindu religion to all intellectual attitudes
\nexcept sheer libertinism; hence also the marvellous perfection
\nof graded thought-attitudes in which the Hindu mind travels
\nbetween the sheer negative & the sheer positive and yet sees in
\nthem only a ladder of progressive & closely related steps rising
\nthrough relative conceptions to one final & absolute knowledge.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThe intellectual temperament of a people determines the
\nmain character-stamp of its poetry. There is therefore no considerable poet in Sanscrit who has not the twofold impression,
\n(spiritual & romantic in aim, our poetry is realistic in method),
\nwho does not keep his feet on the ground even while his eyes
\nare with the clouds. The soaring lark who loses himself in light,
\nthe ineffectual angel beating his luminous wings in the void
\nare not denizens of the Hindu plane of temperament. Hence
\nthe expectant critic will search ancient Hindu literature in vain for the poetry of mysticism; that is only to be found in recent
\nBengali poetry which has felt the influence of English models.
\nThe old Sanscrit poetry was never satisfied unless it could show
\ncolour, energy & definiteness, & these are things incompatible
\nwith true mysticism. Even the Upanishads which declare the
\nphenomenal world to be unreal, yet have a rigidly practical
\naim and labour in every line to make the indefinite definite &
\nthe abstract concrete. But of all our great poets Kalidasa best
\nexemplifies this twynatured Hindu temperament under the conditions of supreme artistic beauty & harmony. Being the most
\nvariously learned of Hindu poets he draws into his net all our
\ntraditions, ideas, myths, imaginations, allegories; the grotesque
\n  
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n213<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\t& the trivial as well as the sublime or lovely; but touching them
\nwith his magic wand teaches them to live together in the harmonising atmosphere of his poetic temperament; under his touch the
\ngrotesque becomes strange, wild & romantic; the trivial refines
\ninto a dainty & gracious slightness; the sublime yields to the
\nlaw of romance, acquires a mighty grace, a strong sweetness;
\nand what was merely lovely attains power, energy & brilliant
\ncolour. His creations in fact live in a peculiar light, which is not
\nthe light that never was on sea or land but rather our ordinary
\nsunshine recognisable though strangely & beautifully altered.
\nThe alteration is not real; rather our vision is affected by the
\nrecognition of something concealed by the sunbeams & yet the
\ncause of the sunbeams; but it is plain human sunlight we see
\nalways. May we not say it is that luminousness behind the veil
\nof this sunlight which is the heaven of Hindu imagination & in all Hindu work shines through it without overpowering it?
\nHindu poetry is the only Paradise in which the lion can lie down
\nwith the lamb.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThe personages of Kalidasa’s poetry are with but few exceptions gods & demigods or skiey spirits, but while they preserve
\na charm of wonder, sublimity or weirdness, they are brought
\nonto our own plane of experience, their speech and thought
\n& passion is human. This was the reason alleged by the late
\nBunkim Chundra Chatterji, himself a poet and a critic of fine
\n& strong insight, for preferring the Birth of the War God to
\nParadise Lost; he thought that both epics were indeed literary
\nepics of the same type, largely-planned and sublime in subject,
\ndiction and thought, but that the Hindu poem if less grandiose
\nin its pitch had in a high degree the humanism and sweetness of
\nsimple & usual feeling in which the Paradise Lost is more often
\nthan not deficient. But the humanism of which I speak is not the
\nHomeric naturalism; there is little of the sublime or romantic
\nin the essence of the Homeric gods though there is much of
\nboth in a good many of their accidents & surroundings. But
\nKalidasa’s divine & semi-divine personages lose none of their
\ngodhead by living on the plane of humanity. Perhaps the most
\nexquisite masterpiece in this kind is the Cloud Messenger. The   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n214<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\tactors in that beautiful love-elegy might have been chosen by
\nShelley himself; they are two lovers of Faeryland, a cloud, rivers,
\nmountains, the gods & demigods of air & hill & sky; the goal of
\nthe cloud’s journey is the ethereal city of Ullaca upon the golden
\nhill crowned by the clouds and bathed at night in the unearthly
\nmoonlight that streams from the brow of Sheva, the mystic’s
\nGod. The earth is seen mainly as a wonderful panorama by one
\ntravelling on the wings of a cloud. Here are all the materials
\nfor one of those intangible harmonies of woven & luminous
\nmist with which Shelley allures & baffles us. The personages &
\nscenery are those of Queen Mab, Prometheus Unbound & the
\nWitch of Atlas. But Kalidasa’s city in the mists is no evanescent
\ncity of sunlit clouds; it is his own beautiful & luxurious Ujjayini
\nidealised & exempted from mortal affection; like a true Hindu
\nhe insists on translating the ideal into the terms of the familiar,
\nsensuous & earthy.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tFor death and birth keep not their mystic round <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tIn Ullaca; there from the deathless trees
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThe blossom lapses never to the ground
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tBut lives for ever garrulous with bees
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tAll honey-drunk \u2014  nor yet its sweets resign.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tFor ever in their girdling companies. etc.7<\/font><\/sup> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tAnd when he comes to describe the sole mourner in that town of delight eternal & passion unsated, this is how he describes
\nher.8<\/font><\/sup>
\nHow human, how touching, how common it all is; while we read, we feel ourselves kin to & one with a more beautiful
\nworld than our own. These creatures of fancy hardly seem to be an imaginary race but rather ourselves removed from the
\nsordidness & the coarse pains of our world into a more gracious
\nexistence. This, I think, is the essential attraction which makes
\nhis countrymen to this day feel such a passionate delight in
\nKalidasa; after reading a poem of his the world and life and
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t7 The “etc.” indicates that Sri Aurobindo intended to quote more from his now-lost translation of
\n<\/i>The Cloud Messenger.
\n\t\t\t\u2014  Ed<\/i>. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t8 Sri Aurobindo evidently intended to insert another passage from his translation of
\n<\/i>The Cloud Messenger
\nhere. \u2014  Ed<\/i>.
\n   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n215<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\tour fellow creatures human, animal or inanimate have become
\nsuddenly more beautiful & dear to us than they were before; the
\nheart flows out towards birds & beasts and the very trees seem to be drawing us towards them with their branches as if with
\narms; the vain cloud & the senseless mountain are no longer senseless or empty, but friendly intelligences that have a voice to
\nour souls. Our own common thoughts, feelings & passions have
\nalso become suddenly fair to us; they have received the sanction
\nof beauty. And then through the passion of delight & the sense of life & of love in all beautiful objects we reach to the Mighty
\nSpirit behind them whom our soul recognizes no longer as an
\nobject of knowledge or of worship but as her lover, to whom
\nshe must fly, leaving her husband the material life & braving
\nthe jeers & reprobation of the world for His sake. Thus by a
\nsingular paradox, one of those beautiful oxymorons of which
\nthe Hindu temperament is full, we reach God through the senses,
\njust as our ancestors did through the intellect and through the
\nemotions; for in the Hindu mind all roads lead eventually to the
\nRome of its longing, the dwelling of the Most High God. One can see how powerfully Kalidasa’s poetry must have prepared
\nthe national mind for the religion of the Puranas, the worship of Kali, Our Mother & of Srikrishna, of Vrindavun, our soul’s
\nParamour. Here indeed lies his chief claim to rank with Valmekie & Vyasa as one of our three national poets, in that he gathered
\nthe mind-life of the nation into his poetry at a great & critical
\nmoment and helped it forward into the groove down which it
\nmust henceforth run.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThis method is employed with conspicuous beauty & success in the Urvasie. The Opsaras are the most beautiful &
\nromantic conception on the lesser plane of Hindu mythology.
\nFrom the moment that they arose out of the waters of the milky
\nOcean robed in ethereal raiment & heavenly adornments, waking melody from a million lyres, the beauty and light of them has transformed the world. They crowd in the sunbeams, they
\nflash & gleam over heaven in the lightnings, they make the azure
\nbeauty of the sky; they are the light of sunrise & sunset, and the
\nhaunting voices of forest & field. They dwell too in the life of   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n216<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\t\t\tthe soul; for they are the ideal pursued by the poet through his
\nlines, by the artist shaping his soul on his canvas, by the sculptor
\nseeking a form in his marble; for the joy of their embrace the hero flings his life into the rushing torrent of battle; the sage, musing
\nupon God, sees the shining of their limbs & falls from his white
\nideal. The delight of life, the beauty of things, the attraction
\nof sensuous beauty, this is what the mystic & romantic side of the Hindu temperament strove to express in the Opsara. The
\noriginal meaning is everywhere felt as a shining background, but
\nmost in the older allegories, especially the strange and romantic
\nlegend of Pururavus as we first have it in the Brahmanas and the
\nVishnupurana. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tBut then came in the materialistic side of the Hindu mind
\nand desired some familiar term, the earthlier the better, in which
\nto phrase its romantic conception; this was found in \u2014  the Hetaira. The class of Hetairae was as recognized an element in
\nHindu society as in Greek, but it does not appear to have exercised quite so large an influence on social life. As in the Greek
\ncounterpart they were a specially learned and accomplished class of women, but their superiority over ladies of good families was
\nnot so pronounced; for in ancient India previous to the Mahomedan episode respectable women were not mere ignorant
\nhousewives like the Athenian ladies, they were educated though
\nnot in a formal manner; that is to say they went through no
\nsystematic training such as men had but parents were always
\nexpected to impart general culture & accomplishments to them
\nby private tuition at home; singing, music, dancing and to some
\nextent painting were the ordinary accomplishments, general
\nknowledge of morality, Scripture and tradition was imperative,
\nand sometimes the girls of highborn, wealthy or learned families
\nreceived special instruction in philosophy or mathematics. Some
\nindeed seem to have pursued a life of philosophic learning either
\nas virgins or widows; but such instances were in preBuddhistic
\ntimes very rare; the normal Hindu feeling has always been that
\nthe sphere of woman is in the home and her life incomplete
\nunless merged in her husband’s. In any case the majority of
\nthe kulabadhus, women of respectable families, could hardly   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\n\t\t\tbe more than amateurs in the arts & sciences, whereas with
\nthe Hetairae (Gunicas) such accomplishments were pursued and
\nmastered as a profession. Hence beside their ordinary occupation of singing & dancing in the temples & on great public
\noccasions such as coronations & holy days, they often commanded the irregular affections of highborn or wealthy men who
\nled openly a double life at home with the wife, outside with the
\nHetaira. As a class, they held no mean place in society; for they
\nmust not be confused with the strolling actor or mountebank caste who were a proverb for their vileness of morals. Many of
\nthem, no doubt, as will inevitably happen when the restraints of
\nsociety are not recognized, led loose, immoral & sensual lives;
\nin such a class Lais & Phryne must be as common as Aspasia.
\nNevertheless the higher & intellectual element seems to have
\nprevailed; those who arrogated freedom in their sexual relations
\nbut were not prostitutes, are admirably portrayed in Vasuntsena of the Toy Cart, a beautiful melodrama drawn straight from the life; like her they often exchanged, with the consent of their
\nlover’s family, the unveiled face of the Hetaira for the seclusion
\nof the wife. This class both in its higher & lower type lasted late into the present century, but are now under the auspices of
\nWestern civilisation almost entirely replaced by a growing class of professional prostitutes, an inevitable consummation which
\nit seems hardly worth while to dub social reform & accelerate by an active crusade.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThe Opsaras then are the divine Hetairae of Paradise, beautiful singers & actresses whose beauty and art relieve the arduous
\n& worldlong struggle of the Gods against the forces that tend towards disruption & dissolution, of disruption represented by
\nthe Titans who would restore matter to its original atomic condition or of dissolution by the sages & hermits who would make
\nphenomena dissolve prematurely into the One who is above
\nPhenomena. They rose from the Ocean, says Valmekie, seeking
\nwho should choose them as brides, but neither the Gods nor the
\nTitans accepted them, therefore are they said to be common or
\nuniversal.   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\n\t\t\tWe see then the appropriateness of the Hetaira as a material form into which the vague idea of sensuous beauty in the world might
\nrun. For the charm of the Opsara even when working on the plane of the mind, is still vital & sensational; it does not belong
\nto the more rarefied regions of the spirit. Now vital & sensational charm in seeking its fulfilment demands that the pursuit of
\nsensuous beauty shall be its sole object, that it shall be without
\ncheck as without any sideglance or afterthought; it does not seek
\nto be immoral, but simply rejects all moral tests; it recognizes no law but the fulfilment of its own being. This is the very spirit
\nof the Hetaira. The beauty of nakedness sculptured, painted or shaped into words, is not immoral; but the moment we apply the
\ntest of morality, it becomes clear that we must either rule it out as
\nnot belonging to the world of morality, or rule out morality itself
\nfor the moment as not belonging to the world of beauty, which is essentially a world of nakedness in the sense that dress there is
\nan occasional ornament, not a necessary covering \u2014  not because
\nthere is any essential opposition between them but because there
\nis no essential connection or necessary point of contact. The
\nideals of all the plastic & sensuous arts fall within the scope of
\nthe Opsara; she is actress, songstress, musician, painter. When they arose from the waves, neither the gods nor the demons
\naccepted them; accepted by none, they became common to all; for neither the great active faculties of man nor the great destructive recognize sensuous delight & charm as their constant & sufficient mistress, but rather as the joy & refreshment of an
\nhour, an accompaniment or diversion in their constant pursuit of the recognized ideal to which they are wedded. Moreover
\nsensuous beauty has a certain attraction & splendour which seem to some minds finally & occasionally to most, fairer &
\nbrighter than that other ideal which by daily occupation with it, by permissibility & by sameness, grows stale for some, fades into
\nhomeliness & routine for others & preserves its real undying,
\nunageing and unforsakeable freshness & delight only to the few constant & unswerving souls, who are the elect of our human
\nevolution. In all this the idea of the Opsara coincides with the actuality of the Hetaira. In choosing the Hetaira therefore for the   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\n\t\t\tOpsara’s earthly similitude, the Hindu mind showed once more
\nthat wonderful mythopoeic penetrativeness which is as unerring
\n& admirable in its way as the Greek mythopoeic felicity & tact. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tBut in the Opsaras the beauty and allurements of the sensuous universe are diffused, scattered, broken up into a million facets
\njust as they first present themselves to human observation. The
\nHindu imagination needed some one figure into which all this
\nshould be compressed, a figure essential & superlative, compressed & running over with beauty. This was at first sought in
\nTilottama, the wonderful maiden to whose loveableness every gracious thing in the world gave a portion of its own subtlest
\ncharm; but this was too much of a fancy, not sufficiently profound & searching for the Hindu mind. It attempted to find a
\nmore perfect expression of its idea & created for the purpose a
\ncharacteristic & therefore favourite legend.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tWhen Naraian, the primeval and dateless sage of old, entered upon austerities in the most secret & desolate recesses of the
\nSnowy Mountains, Indra, prince of the air, always hostile to
\nasceticism, always distrustful of the philosophic & contemplative spirit, was alarmed for the balance of the world and
\nthe security of his own rule. He therefore sent the Opsaras to disturb the meditations of Naraian. Then upon the desolate Himalaya Spring set the beauty of his feet; the warm south
\nwind breathed upon those inclement heights, blossoming trees
\ngrew in the eternal snow and the voice of the cuckoo was heard
\nupon the mountain tops. It was amidst this vernal sweetness that
\nthe Opsaras came to Naraian; they were the loveliest of all the sisterhood who came, & subtlest & most alluring of feminine
\narts & enchantments was the way of their wooing; but Naraian, who is Vishnu the World Saviour when he comes in the guise
\nof the ascetic, moved neither by the passion of love nor by the
\npassion of anger, smiled in the large & indulgent mood of his
\nworld embracing nature and opening his thigh took from it a
\nradiant and marvellous creature of whose beauty the loveliest
\nOpsaras seemed but pale & broken reflections. Ashamed they  
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\n\t\t\tveiled their faces & stole silently away from the snowy hermitage. But Naraian called this daughter of his creation Urvasie (she who lies in the thigh of the Supreme, the thigh being the seat of sensuousness) and gave her to Indra to be his most potent
\ndefence against the austerities of spiritual longing.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tThe legend is characteristic of the Hindu mythopoeic faculty both in its slight and unpretentious build and in the number of
\nsearching & suggestive thoughts with which it is packed. Indra
\nis the universal cosmic energy limited in the terrestrial forces of
\nconservation; like all active & conservative forces he distrusts the
\ncontemplative spirit of philosophy because it is disruptive and
\ntends to cast thought & therefore life into solution towards the
\ncreation of fresh forms. Thus he is besieged by a double anxiety; on one side the spirits entrusted with the work of destruction &
\nanarchy are ever endeavouring to seat themselves in the place of Indra, the high conserving force, on the other he dreads to
\nbe dethroned by some embodiment of the contemplative spirit,
\nexamining, analysing, synthetising new forms. His method of defence against the former is usually though by no means invariably open warfare, against the latter sensuous seduction. He
\ntempts the mind of the philosopher to sacrifice that aloofness
\nfrom ordinary sensuous life & its average delights on which his
\nperfect effectiveness depends; or if he cannot succeed in this, to
\nmove him to an angry and abhorrent recoil from sensuousness
\nwhich is equally fatal to complete philosophic efficiency. This
\nthen is the inwardness of the sending of the Opsaras by Indra. Naraian conquers the temptation, not by ignoring or repelling
\nit, but by producing out of the sensuous in himself a lovelier
\nsensuousness than any that can be brought to tempt him. Here is a peculiarity in the highest Indian conception of ascetism. The
\nsage who delivers the world by his philosophy must not be a half nature; he must contain the whole world in himself. It is told that
\nthe great Shankaracharya in the midst of his triumphant religious
\nactivity had to turn aside and learn by personal experience the
\ndelights of sensuous life and the love of women, because the
\ndefect of this experience left him maimed for his philosophic
\n  
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\n

\n
\n\t\t\ttask. The philosopher must be superior to sensuousness not
\nbecause he is incapable of experiencing passion & delight, but
\nbecause he has fathomed their utmost depth and measured their
\nutmost reach, and far passed the stage of soul-evolution where
\nthey can satisfy.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tAnd yet the work of the philosophic mind incidentally serves
\nsensuous and material life by increasing its resources and the
\ndepth of its charm. For the power of the philosophic ideals which
\nhave profoundly affected humanity is not limited to the domain of the intellect but also affects, enlarges and strengthens man’s
\naesthetic outlook upon the world. The sensuous world becomes
\nfuller of beauty, richer in colours, shades and suggestions, more
\nprofound and attractive with each widening of the human ideal. It is Urvasie who sprang from the thigh of the withered hermit
\ncold and not any of those original daughters of the inconstant
\nwaves who is the loveliest and most dangerous of the Opsaras.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tSuch then is Urvasie, Naraian born, the brightness of sunlight & the blush of the dawn, the multitudinous laughter of the
\nsea, the glory of the skies and the leap of the lightning, all in brief that is bright, far-off, unseizable & compellingly attractive
\nin this world; all too that is wonderful, sweet to the taste & intoxicating in human beauty, human life, the joy of human
\npassion & emotion: all finally that seizes, masters & carries
\naway in art, poetry, thought & knowledge, is involved in this
\none name. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\t\t\tOf these outward brilliances Kalidasa’s conception of Urvasie is entirely void. His presentation of her is simply that of a beautiful and radiant woman deeply in love. Certainly the
\nglories of her skiey residence, the far-off luminousness and the free breath of the winds are about her, but they are her atmosphere rather than part of herself. The essential idea of her is a
\nnatural, frank & charming womanliness; timidity, a quick temper, a harmless petulance and engaging childishness afterwards
\ngiving way to a matronly sedateness & bloom, swift, innocent &
\nfrank passion, warm affections as mother, sister & friend, speech   <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\n\t\t\talways straight from the heart, the precise elements in fact that
\ngive their greatest charm to ideal girlhood & womanhood are
\nthe main tones that compose her picture. There is nothing here of the stately pace & formal dignity of the goddess, no cothurnus raising her above human stature, no mask petrifying the simple & natural play of the feelings, the smile in the eyes, the ready
\ntears, the sweetness of the mouth, the lowered lashes, the quick
\nand easy gesture full of spontaneous charm. If this is a nymph
\nof heaven, one thinks, then heaven must be beautifully like the
\nearth. Her terror & collapse in the episode of her abduction &
\nrescue, where Chitraleqha manages pretty successfully to keep up her courage as a goddess should, is certainly not Opsaralike
\n\t\t\t\u2014  Chitraleqha with sisterly impatience expresses her sense of that, “Fie, sweet! thou art no Opsara”
\n\t\t\t\u2014  but it is nevertheless attractively human and seizes our sympathies for her from the
\noutset. Still more engaging is her timidity. There is also a sensitiveness in her love, a quickness to take alarm & despond
\nwhich makes her very human. If this is jealousy, it is a quick
\n& generous jealousy having nothing in it of “jealous baseness”,
\nbut rather born of a panic of timidity and an extreme diffidence
\n& ignorance of the power of her own beauty. This detail is very
\ncarefully observed & emphasized as if Kalidasa wished to take
\nespecial pains to prevent even the most hidebound commentator
\nfrom reading in her character any touch of the heavenly courtesan. The ostentatious splendours, the conscious allurements of
\nthe courtesan are not here, but rather a divine simplicity and
\nwhite candour of soul. It is from an innate purity & openness
\nthat the frankness & impulsiveness of her love proceeds. Incapable of disguise,
\n\t\t\thastily open, even tremulously playful at times, she is easily
\n\t\t\tdashed in her advances & quick to distrust her own merit. There are
\n\t\t\tfew more graceful touches in lighter love-drama than her hasty
\n\t\t\tappearance, unconsciously invisible, before Pururavus, and her panic
\n\t\t\tof dismay when he takes no notice of her. In the same scene, her
\n\t\t\thalf playful, half serious self-justification on embracing her lover and her immediate abashed
\nsilence at his retort, portray admirably the mixture of frank
\nimpulsiveness and shy timidity proper to her character. These  
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\n\t\t\tare the little magic half-noticeable touches of which Kalidasian
\ncharacterisation is mainly composed, the hundred significant
\ntrifles which Kalidasa’s refined taste in life felt to be the essence of character in action. A shade of wilfulness, the occasional
\nchildlike petulance, the delighted abandonment of herself to her
\npassion, which are part of her charm, proceed also from the same
\nsurface lightness & quickness of a deep & strong nature. With
\nall this she can be very sweet and noble too, even dignified as in
\na few utterances of the Third Act, her reunion with Pururavus in
\nthe fourth and all through the fifth where she is wife and mother
\nand while losing the girlishness, petulance & playfulness of the
\nearlier scenes has greatly deepened her charm. I see nothing of
\nthe heavenly courtesan which some over-precise commentators
\ninsist on finding in her; within the four corners of the play, which
\nis all Kalidasa allows us to consider, she is wholly delightful,
\ninnocent, even modest, at any rate not immodest. Certainly she
\nis more frank and playful in her love than Shacountala or even
\nMalavica could venture to be, but something must be allowed
\nto a goddess and her demeanour is too much flavoured with
\ntimidity, her advances too easily dashed to give any disagreeable impression of forwardness. Urvasie’s finest characteristic, however, is her sincerity in passion and affection. The poet has
\ntaken great pains to discharge her utterance of all appearance of
\nsplendour, ornament & superfluity; her simple, direct & earnest
\ndiction is at the opposite pole to the gorgeous imaginativeness of the Ilian. And while her manner of speech is always simple and ordinary, what she says is exactly the unstudied & obvious
\nthing that a woman of no great parts, but natural and quick
\nin her affections would spontaneously say under the circumstances; it is even surprisingly natural. For example when she
\nsees Ayus fondled by Pururavus, “Who is this youth” she asks with the little inevitable undertone of half-jealousy “Himself my
\nmonarch binds his hair into a crest! Who should this be so highly
\nfavoured”; and then she notices Satyavatie & understands. But there is no poetical outburst of maternal joy & passion. “It is my
\nAyus! How he has grown!” That is all; & nothing could be better
\nor truer. Yet for all the surface colourlessness there is a charm in <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\teverything Urvasie says, the charm of absolute sincerity & direct
\nunaffected feeling. Her passion for Pururavus is wonderfully
\ngenuine and fine from her first cry of “O Titans! You did me
\nkindness!” to her last of “O a sword is taken Out of my heart!”
\nWhatever the mood its speech has always a tender force and
\nreality. Her talk with Chitraleqha and the other Opsaras from the outburst “O sisters, sisters, take me to your bosoms” to her
\nfarewell “Chitraleqha, my sister! do not forget me”, is instinct,
\nwhen moved, with “a passion of sisterliness” and at other times, bright & limpid in its fair kindness & confidence. To her son she comes “with her whole rapt gaze Grown mother, the veiled
\nbosom heaving towards him And wet with sacred milk.” & her
\nfarewell to the Hermitess sets a model for the expression of genuine & tender friendship. Urvasie is doubtless not so noble & strong a portraiture as Shacountala, but she is inferior to no
\nheroine of Sanscrit drama in beauty & sweetness of womanly
\nnature.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn dramatic tone and build therefore this is an admirable creation, but there is so far no hint of the worldwide divineness
\nof Urvasie, of the goddess within the woman. In direct allegory
\nKalidasa was too skilful an artist to deal, but we expect the
\nlarger conception of this beautiful and significant figure to enter
\ninto or at least colour the dramatic conception of the woman;
\nsome pomp of words, some greatness of gesture, some large divinity whether of speech or look to raise her above a mere
\nnymph, however charming, into the goddess we know. Yet in
\nrigidly excluding the grandiose or the coloured Kalidasa has shown, I think, his usual unerring dramatic and psychological
\ntact. Dramatically, to have made Pururavus & Urvasie equally
\nromantic in spirit & diction, to have clothed both in the external purple of poetry, would have been to offend the eye
\nwith unrelieved gorgeousness and converted the play from an
\ninteresting & skilfully woven drama into a confused splendour
\nof lyrical dialogue. Psychologically, the divinity and universal charm of Urvasie would have been defaced rather than brought
\nout by investing her with grandeur of feeling or a pomp of poetic  
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tornament. Perfect beauty has in it a double aspect, its intrinsic
\nself and the impression it makes on the vivid & receptive mind.
\nIn itself it is simple, unconscious & unadorned, most effective
\nwhen it is most naked, ceasing to be these, it loses its perfection
\nand a great part of its universal charm. The nude human figure in painting and sculpture, unadorned magic or strength of
\nstyle & conception in poetry, clear, luminous & comprehensive
\nthought in philosophy, these are what the pursuing human spirit
\nfeels to be ideal, highest, most worthy of itself. Drapery blurs
\nthe effulgence of the goddess, ornament distracts the spirit and
\ndisappoints it of its engrossed and undisturbed sense of possession. On the other hand the mind while most moved by what
\nis simple and natural in its appeal, is romantic in its method of receiving the impression; becoming engrossed and steeped
\nwith the idea of it, it directs to it and surrounds it with all the
\nfresh impressions that continually flow in on the consciousness,
\ngathers from it colour, fire & passion, creates around it a host of splendid associations and clothes it in the pomp of its own passionate imagery. The first period of a literary race when its
\nmind is yet virgin & has to create beauty is invariably simple
\nand classical, the last period when its mind is saturated and full of past beauty is always romantic and aesthetic. The relations
\nof Urvasie & Pururavus are true to this psychological principle. She herself is mere beauty and charm sufficient to itself and
\ncommanding delight and worship because she is herself, not
\nbecause of any graces of expression, imagination or intellectual
\nprofundity. But the mind of Pururavus receiving her pure and
\nperfect image steeps her in its own fire and colour, surrounding her with a halo of pomp and glory, which reveals himself while
\nseeking to interpret her.
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tMinor Characters
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tNothing more certainly distinguishes the dramatic artist from
\nthe poet who has trespassed into drama than the careful pain he
\ndevotes to his minor characters. To the artist nothing is small; he
\nbestows as much of his art within the narrow limit of his small  
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\ncharacters as within the wide compass of his greatest. Shakespeare lavishes life upon his minor characters, but in Shakespeare
\nit is the result of an abounding creative energy; he makes living
\nmen, as God made the world, because he could not help it, because it was in his nature and must out. But Kalidasa’s dramatic gift, always suave and keen, had not this godlike abundance; it
\nis therefore well to note the persistence of this feature of high art in all his dramas. In the Urvasie the noble figure of Queen Aushinarie is the most striking evidence of his fine artistry, but even
\nslight sketches like the Opsaras are seen upon close attention to be portrayed
\n\t\t\twith a subtle & discriminating design; thought has been bestowed on
\n\t\t\teach word they speak, an observable delicacy of various touch shows
\n\t\t\titself in each tone & gesture they employ. A number of shining
\n\t\t\tfigures crowded into a corner of the canvas, like in meaning, like
\n\t\t\tin situation, like in nature, they seem to offer the very narrowest
\n\t\t\tscope for differentiation; yet every face varies just a little from
\n\t\t\tits sister, the diction of each tongue has its revealing
\n\t\t\tindividuality. The timid, warm-hearted Rumbha, easily despondent, full of quick outbursts of eagerness and tenderness is other than the statelier Menaca with her royal gift of speech and her high confidence. Sahajunya is of an intenser, more silent, less imaginative, more practical type than either of these. It is
\nshe who gives Pururavus the information of the road which the ravisher has taken, and from that point onward amid all the
\nanxious and tender chatter of her sisters she is silent until she has the practical fact of Pururavus’ reappearance to seize upon.
\nThis she is again the first to descry and announce. Her utterance is brief, of great point & substance. From the few words
\nshe has uttered we unconsciously receive a deep impression of helpfulness, earnestness and strength; we know her voice and
\nare ready [to] recognise it again in the Fourth Act. Her attitude there is characteristic; since help she cannot, she will not waste
\ntime over vain lamentation; Fate has divided the lovers, Fate will
\nunite them again; so with a cheerful & noble word of consolation
\nshe turns to the immediate work in hand.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tChitraleqha, more fortunate than the other Opsaras in obtaining through three acts a large canvas as the favourite and   <\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\ncomrade of Urvasie, suffers dramatically from her good fortune, for she must necessarily appear a little indistinct so near to
\nthe superior light of her companion. Indeed dramatic necessity
\ndemands subdued tones in her portraiture lest she should deflect
\nattention from Urvasie where it is her task to attract it to her; she
\nmust be always the cloud’s dim legion that prepares us to watch
\nfor the lightning. Richness of colour & prominence of line are therefore not permissible; yet in spite of these hampering conditions the poet has made her a sufficiently definite personality.
\nIndeed her indulgent affection, her playful kindliness, her little
\noutbreaks of loving impatience or sage advice, \u2014  the neglect of which she takes in excellent part
\n\t\t\t\u2014  her continual smiling surrender to Urvasie’s petulance & wilfulness and her whole half matron-like air of elder-sisterly protection, give her a very
\nsensible charm and attractiveness; there is a true nymphlike & divine grace, tact & felicity in all that she says & does. Outside
\nthe group of Opsaras the Hermitess Satyavatie is a slighter but equally attractive figure, venerable, kind, a little impersonal owing to the self-restraint which is her vocation, but with glimpses
\nthrough it of a fine motherliness and friendliness. The perpetual
\ngrace of humanness, which is so eminently Kalidasian, forming
\nthe atmosphere of all his plays, seems to deepen with a peculiar
\nbeauty around his ascetics, Kunwa, Satyavatie, the learned & unfortunate lady of the Malavica. The “little rogue of a
\n\t\t\ttiring-woman” Nipounica, sly & smooth-tongued, though with no real harm in her beyond a delight in her own slyness and a fine
\nsense of exhilaration in the midst of a family row, pleasantly
\nbrings up the rear of these slighter feminine personalities. The
\nmasculine sketches are drawn in more unobtrusive outlines and,
\nafter Kalidasa’s manner, less individualized than his women. The
\nCharioteer & the Huntsmen are indeed hardly distinct figures;
\nthey have but a few lines to utter between them and are only
\nremarkable for the shadow of the purple which continual association with Pururavus has cast over their manner of speech.
\nThe Chamberlain again, fine as he is in his staid melancholy, his
\naged fidelity, his worn-out and decrepit venerableness and that continual suggestion of the sorrowfulness of grey hairs, is still   <\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\nmainly the fine Kalidasian version of a conventional dramatic
\nfigure. The one touch that gives him a personal humanity is the
\nsad resignation of his “It is your will, Sire” when Pururavus,
\nabout to depart to asceticism in the forests, commands the investiture of his son. For it is the last & crowning misfortune that
\nthe weary old man must bear; the master over whose youth &
\ngreatness he has watched, for whose sake he serves in his old
\nage, with the events of whose reign all the memories of his life
\nare bound up, is about to depart and a youthful stranger will sit in his place. With that change all meaning must go out of the old
\nman’s existence; but with a pathetic fidelity of resignation he goes
\nout to do his master’s last bidding uttering his daily formula, \u2014  how changed in its newly acquired pathos from the old pompous
\nformality “It is your will, Sire.” Manavaca & Ayus need a larger mention, yet they are less interesting in themselves than for their
\nplace, one in the history of Kalidasa’s artistic development, the
\nother among the finest evidences of his delicacy in portraiture & the scrupulous economy, almost miserliness, with which he
\nextracts its utmost artistic utility, possibility, value from each
\ndetail of his drama.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe age of childhood, its charm and sportive grace and candour, seems to have had a peculiar charm for Kalidasa’s imagination; there is an exquisite light and freshness of morning and dew
\nabout his children; an added felicity of touch, of easy and radiant
\ntruth in his dramatic presentation. Vasuluxmie in the Malavica does not even appear on the stage, yet in that urbane & gracious work there is nothing more charming than her two fateful
\nirruptions into the action of the play. They bring up a picture
\nof the laughing, light-hearted and innocent child, which remains
\nwith us as vividly as the most carefully-drawn character in the
\npiece. The scene of the child playing with the lion’s cub in the
\nShacountala has the same inevitable charm; ninety-one poets out
\nof a hundred would have hopelessly bungled it, but in Kalidasa’s
\nhands it becomes so admirably lifelike and spontaneous that
\nit seems as natural as if the child were playing with a kitten.
\nKalidasa’s marvellous modesty of dramatic effect and power
\n   <\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\nof reproducing ordinary hardly observable speech, gesture and
\naction magicalising but not falsifying them saves him from that embarrassment which most poets feel in dealing dramatically
\nwith children. Even Shakespeare disappoints us. This great poet
\nwith his rich & complex mind usually finds it difficult to attune
\nhimself again to the simplicity, irresponsibility & naive charm
\nof childhood. <\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tArthur, whom the Shakespeare-worshipper would have us
\nregard as a masterpiece, is no real child; he is too <\/span>
\n\t\t\t
\nvoulu<\/i><\/span>, too eloquent, too much dressed up for pathos and too conscious of
\nthe fine sentimental pose he strikes. Children do pose & children do sentimentalise, but they are perfectly naive and unconscious about it; they pose with sincerity, they sentimentalise with a sort of passionate simplicity, indeed an earnest businesslikeness which is so sincere that it does not even require an audience. The
\ngreatest minds have their limitations and Shakespeare’s overabounding wit shut him out from two Paradises, the mind of a
\nchild and the heart of a mother. Constance, the pathetic mother,
\nis a fitting pendant to Arthur, the pathetic child, as insincere and
\nfalsely drawn a portraiture, as obviously dressed up for the part.
\nIndeed throughout the meagre and mostly unsympathetic list of mothers in Shakespeare’s otherwise various & splendid gallery
\nthere is not even one in whose speech there is the throbbing of a
\nmother’s heart; the sacred beauty of maternity is touched upon
\nin a phrase or two; but from Shakespeare we expect something
\nmore, some perfect & passionate enshrining of the most engrossing & selfless of human affections. And to this there is not even an approach. In this one respect the Indian poet, perhaps from
\nthe superior depth and keenness of the domestic feelings peculiar to his nation, has outstripped his greater English compeer.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tKalidasa like Shakespeare seems to have realised the paternal instinct of tenderness far more strongly than the maternal; his
\nworks both dramatic and epic give us many powerful & emotional expressions of the love of father & child to which there
\nare few corresponding outbursts of maternal feeling. Valmekie’s Cowshalya has no parallel in Kalidasa. Yet he expresses the true
\n  
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tsentiment of motherhood with sweetness & truth if not with
\npassion.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAyus & Urvasie in this play were certainly not intended for the dramatic picture of mother & child; this mother has abandoned her child to the care of strangers; this child is new to
\nthe faces of his parents. Such a situation might easily have been
\nmade harsh and unsympathetic but for the fine dramatic tact of
\nthe poet which has purified it from everything that might repel
\nand smoothed away all the angles of the incident. But here the
\ncircumstances excuse if not justify Urvasie. Acting under hard
\nconditions, she has chosen the lesser of two evils; for by keeping
\nAyus, she would have lost both her child and Pururavus; by
\ndelivering him into wise and tender hands she has insured his
\nwelfare & for her part only anticipated the long parting which
\nthe rule of education in ancient India demanded from parents as their sacrifice to the social ideal. Knowing that the child was
\nin good hands she solaces herself with the love of her husband,
\nbut it is not from maternal insensibility that she bears quietly
\nthe starvation of the mother within her. When he returns to
\nher, there is a wonderful subdued intensity characteristic of her
\nsimple & fine nature in the force with which that suppressed
\npassion awakes to life. She approaches her son, wordless, but
\nher veiled bosom heaves towards him and is “wet with sacred
\nmilk”; in her joy over him she forgets even that impending separation from the husband to avert which she has sacrificed the
\nembrace of his infancy. It is this circumstance, not any words,
\nthat testifies to the depth of her maternal feeling; her character
\nforbids her to express it in splendours of poetic emotion such as well spontaneously from the heart of Pururavus. A look, a few
\nordinary words are all; if it were not for these & the observation
\nof others, we should have to live with her daily before we could
\nrealise the depth of feeling behind her silence.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAyus himself is an admirable bit of dramatic craftsmanship. There is a certain critical age when the growing boy is a child
\non one side of his nature and a young man on the other, and of all psychological states such periods of transitional unstable
\n  
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tequilibrium are the most difficult to render dramatically without making the character either a confused blur or an
\n\t\t\till-joined piece of carpenter’s work. Here Kalidasa excels. He has the
\nready tact of speech gradations, the power of simple & telling
\nslightness that can alone meet the difficulty. By an unlaboured and inevitable device the necessary materials are provided. The
\nboy comes straight from the wild green & ascetic forest into
\nthe luxurious splendours of an Oriental court and the presence of a father and mother whom he has never seen; a more trying situation could not easily be imagined; he inevitably becomes self-conscious, embarrassed, burdened with the necessity of maintaining himself against the oppressions of his surroundings. He attempts therefore to disguise his youthful nervousness
\nbehind the usual shield of an overdone & formal dignity, a half
\nunconscious pompousness and an air of playing the man. We are
\neven aware of a slight touch of precocity not unbecoming in one
\nwho has been put through the “complete education of a prince” by the mightiest scholar and sage of his time. Confronted with
\nall these new faces making claims upon him to which his past
\nconsciousness is an alien, the whole adult side of his nature turns
\nuppermost. But fortunately for our comprehension of his true
\nstate of mind, something of the green forest which is his home
\nhas come with him in the person of his foster-mother, Satyavatie. With her he feels as a child may feel with his mother. When
\nhe turns to her or speaks to her, he is again and instinctively in manner, utterance and action the child who ran by her side
\nclutching the skirts of her dress in the free woodland. He speaks
\nlike a child, thinks like a child, acts docilely at her bidding like
\na child. Nothing could be more finely artistic in execution or
\nmore charmingly faithful to nature in its conception.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tManavaca on the other hand is an element of weakness rather
\nthan of strength. I have already spoken of the progressive attenuation of the traditional buffoon part which keeps pace with
\nKalidasa’s dramatic development. Gautama in the Malavica is a
\ncomplete and living personality who has much to say to the action of the plot; witty, mischievous, mendacious & irresponsible
\n  
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\the adds to the interest of the play even independently of this
\nfunctional importance. But in the Urvasie to have made the
\nmain action of the plot turn in any way on the buffoon would
\nhave been incongruous with the high romantic beauty of the
\ndrama and therefore a serious dramatic error. The function of
\nManavaca is accordingly reduced to that of an interlocutor; he
\nis there because Pururavus must have somebody to confide in &
\ntalk with, otherwise his only dramatic purpose is to give rise by
\nhis carelessness to the episode of Aushinarie’s jealousy & self-subdual. Nevertheless his presence affects the composite tone
\nof the picture. He is other than the buffoons of the Malavica & Shacountala, far more coarse in the grain, far less talented
\n& high-spirited than Gautama, yet not a mere stupid block like [Mandhavya]. He has along with the stock characteristics of
\ngluttony, ugliness & cowardice, an occasional coarse humour, infertile & broad, and even a real gift of commonsense and
\nrather cynical practicality, to say nothing of that shadow of
\nthe purple flung across the speech of all those who associate
\nhabitually with Pururavus; he is at the same time low in mind,
\nunable to understand characters higher than his own. His best
\nvirtue is perhaps his absence of all pretensions & readiness to make a gibe of himself. Such a figure necessarily tends to set
\noff by its drab colour & squat dimensions the lyric idealism of Pururavus, the radiant charm of Urvasie & the pale loftiness of
\nthe Queen. But it is by his place in the picture and not by what he is in himself that he justifies his existence. He does not attract
\nor interest, indeed he at times only just escapes being tiresome. At the same time he lives.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAmong all these minor figures who group themselves around
\nthe two protagonists and are of purely accessory interest there
\nis one who stands out and compels the eye both by her nobler
\nproportions and her independent personality. Queen Aushinarie
\nhas no real claim by any essentiality in her actions to the large space she occupies in the play; her jealousy does not retard and her renunciation sanctifies rather than assists the course of Pururavus’ love for Urvasie. The whole episode in which she figures
\nfits more loosely into the architecture of the piece than can be  
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
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\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\texampled elsewhere in Kalidasa’s dramatic workmanship. The
\ninterest of her personality justifies the insertion of the episode
\nrather than the episode that justifies the not inconsiderable space
\ndevoted to her. The motif of her appearance is the same conventional element of wifely rivalry, the jealousy of the rose-in-bloom
\nagainst the rose-in-bud that has formed the whole groundwork
\nof the Malavica. There the groundwork, here its interest is brief
\nand episodical. And yet none of the more elaborated figures in the earlier play, not even Dharinie herself, is as fine and deep a conception as the wife of Pururavus. Princess of Kashie and daughter of the Ushenors, acknowledged by her rival to deserve by right of her noble majesty of fairness “the style of Goddess and of Empress,” we feel that she has a right to resent the preference to her even of an Opsara from heaven and the completeness
\nof Pururavus’ absorption in Urvasie gives a tragic significance to her loss which is not involved in the lighter loves & jealousies of
\nVidesha. The character is more profoundly & boldly conceived.
\nThe passion of her love strikes deeper than the mere heyday of
\nyouth and beauty and the senses in Iravatie as the noble sadness of her self-renunciation moves more powerfully than the kind &
\ngentle wifeliness of Queen Dharinie. And in the manner of her
\ndelineation there is more incisiveness and restraint with a nobler
\neconomy of touch. The rush of her jealousy comes with less of a storm than Iravatie’s but it has a fierier & keener edge and it
\nis felt to be the disguise of a deep and mighty love. The passion of that love leaps out in the bitter irony of her self-accusal
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tNot yours the guilt, my lord. I am in fault
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWho force my hated and unwelcome face
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tUpon you.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tand again when in the very height of her legitimate resentment
\nshe has the sure consciousness of her after-repentance.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAnd yet the terror
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tOf the remorse I know that I shall feel
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tIf I spurn his kindness, frightens me.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAnger for the time sweeps her away, but we are prepared for her  
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n234<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\trepentance and sacrifice in the next act. Even in her anger she has
\nbeen imperially strong & restrained and much of the poetic force
\nof her renunciation comes from the perfect sweetness, dignity &
\nself-control with which she acts in that scene. The emotion of
\nself-sacrificing love breaks out only once at the half sneering
\nreproach of the buffoon
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tDull fool!
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tI with the death of my own happiness
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWould give my husband ease. From this consider
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tHow dearly I love him.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPutting gently but sorrowfully away from her the King’s half-sincere protestations of abiding love, she goes out of the drama,
\na pure, devoted & noble nature, clad in gracious white “and sylvanly adorned with flowers, her raven tresses spangled with
\nyoung green Of sacred grass”; but the fragrance of her flowers of sacrifice and the mild beauty of the moonlight remain behind
\nher. She does not reappear unless it is in the haste of Urvasie to
\nbring her recovered child to his “elder mother”. This haste with
\nits implied fullness of gratitude & affection is one of Kalidasa’s careful side touches telling us better than words that in spirit &
\nletter she has fulfilled utterly the vow she made on the moonlit
\nterrace under seal of
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe divine wife & husband, Rohinnie
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAnd Mrigolanchon named the spotted moon.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe deepening of moral perception, the increase in power &
\npathos, the greater largeness of drawing and finer emotional
\nstrength and restraint show the advance Kalidasa has made in
\ndramatic characterisation. Grace, sweetness, truth to life and character, perfect & delicate workmanship, all that reveals the
\npresence of the artist were his before; but the Urvasie reveals a
\nriper & larger genius widening its scope, raising mightier vans
\nbefore yet it take its last high and surpassing flight.
\n  
\n<\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013
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\n<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vikramorvasie   The Characters   Pururavus is the poet’s second study of kinghood; he differs substantially from Agnimitra. The latter is a prince, a soldier…<\/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-2425","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\/2425","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=2425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}