{"id":2438,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2438"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:37","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:37","slug":"24-kalidasa-vikramorvasie-the-play-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\/24-kalidasa-vikramorvasie-the-play-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","title":{"rendered":"-24_Kalidasa – Vikramorvasie – The Play.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nVikram and the Nymph is the second,
\nin order of time, of Kalidasa’s three extant dramas. The steady development of the poet’s
\ngenius is easy to read even for a
\nsuperficial observer. Malavica and the King is a gracious and delicate trifle, full of the
\nsweet & dainty characterisation which Kalidasa loves, almost
\ntoo curiously admirable in the perfection of its structure and
\ndramatic art but with only a few touches of that nobility of
\nmanner which raises his tender & sensuous poetry and makes it divine. In the Urvasie he is preening his wings for a mightier
\nflight; the dramatic art is not so flawless, but the characters are
\nfar deeper and nobler, the poetry stronger and more original
\nand the admirable lyrical sweetness of the first and fourth acts as well as the exaltation of love and the passion of beauty which
\nthrob through the whole play, lift it into a far rarer creative
\natmosphere. It is a worthy predecessor of the Shacountala, that
\nloveliest, most nobly tender and most faultless of all romantic
\nplays. Other indications of this development may be observed.
\nThe conventional elements of an Indian romantic comedy, the
\nhumours of the Brahmin buffoon and
\nthe jealousy of the established wife for the new innamorata occupy the whole picture in the Malavica, though they are touched with exquisite skill
\nand transfigured into elements of a gracious and smiling beauty. In the Urvasie the space given to them is far more limited and
\ntheir connection with the main action less vital; and they are less skilfully
\nhandled: finally in the Shacountala we have only vestiges of them, -a
\nperfunctory recognition of their claims to be admitted rather than a willing use
\nof them as good dramatic material. The prologues of the three plays point to a
\nsimilar conclusion. In producing the Malavica Kalidasa comes forward as a new
\nand unrecognized poet challenging the fame of the great dramatic classics and
\napprehensive of severe criticism for  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013
\n194<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nhis audacity, which he anticipates by a defiant challenge. When
\nthe Urvasie is first represented, his position as a dramatist is
\nmore assured; only the slightest apology is given for displacing
\nthe classics in favour of a new play and the indulgence of the audience is requested not for the poet but for the actors. The
\nprologue of the Shacountala on the other hand breathes of the
\ndignified and confident silence of the acknowledged Master. No
\napology is needed; none is volunteered.
\nThe prologue of this play contains an apparent allusion to
\nthe great Vikramaditya, Kalidasa’s patron, and tradition seems to hint, if it does not assert, connection of a kind between the
\nplot of the drama and, perhaps, some episode in the King’s life. At any rate the name of the drama is an obvious compliment to
\nthat great ruler & conqueror and one or two double entendres in the play which I have not thought it worth while to transfer
\ninto English, are, it is clear, strokes [of] delicate flattery pointed to the same quarter. The majority of European scholars identify
\nthis Vikrama with Harsha of Ujjaini, the Grand Monarque of classical India; indigenous scholarship mostly dissents from this
\nview, and an imaginative mind may well prefer to associate our
\ngreatest classical poet with the earlier and more heroic, if also
\nmore shadowy, Vikram, who united the Malavas and founded
\nthe power of that great nation, the most gifted and artistic of
\nthe earlier Hindu peoples. There are no sufficient data to fix
\nKalidasa’s epoch; he was certainly not later than the 6th<\/sup> century after
\nChrist,  certainly not earlier than the 1st<\/sup> century before; but a chronological margin of seven hundred years is too wide to encourage dogmatism.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe legend which forms the subject of the plot is one of
\nthe older Indian myths; it may have been a sun myth dear to
\nthe heart of the late Prof. Max Muller, \u2014 or it may have meant
\nsomething very different. The literary critic is only concerned
\nwith the changes and developments it has undergone in the
\nhands of Kalidasa; that these are all in the direction of emotional
\nsweetness and artistic beauty, may easily be seen by comparing
\nwith the drama a translation of the original story as it appears
\nin the [Shatapatha Brahmana.]<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013
\n195<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

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

Vikramorvasie   The Play   Vikram and the Nymph is the second, in order of time, of Kalidasa’s three extant dramas. The steady development of…<\/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-2438","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\/2438","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=2438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}