{"id":59,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=59"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:36","slug":"27-kalidasa-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/27-kalidasa-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-27_Kalidasa.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nSECTION 
\n<\/span>FIVE<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nO<\/font>NCE <\/font>
\n<\/b>in the long history of poetry the
\nGreat Powers who are ever working the finest energies of nature
\ninto the warp of our human evolution met together and resolved to unite in
\ncreating a poetical intellect and imagination that, endowed with the most noble and various poetical gifts capable in
\nall the great forms used by creative genius, should express once
\nand for all in a supreme manner the whole sensuous plane of life, its heat and
\nlight, its vigour and sweetness. And since to all quality there must be a corresponding defect, they not only gifted
\nthe genius with rich powers and a remarkable temperament
\nbut drew round it the necessary line of limitations. They then
\nsought for a suitable age, nation and environment which should
\nmost harmonise with, foster and lend itself to his peculiar powers.
\nThis they found in the splendid and luxurious city of Ujjayini,
\nthe capital of the great nation of the Malavas, who consolidated
\nthemselves under Vikramaditya in the first century before Christ.
\nHere they set the outcome of their endeavour and called him
\nKalidasa. The country of Avanti had always played a considerable part in our ancient Aryan history for which the genius,
\ntaste and high courage of its inhabitants fitted it; and Ujjayini
\ntheir future capital was always a famous, beautiful and wealthy
\ncity. But until the rise of Vikrama it seemed to have been disunited and therefore unable to work out fully the great destiny
\nfor which the taste, genius, force marked it out. Moreover the
\ntemperament of the nation had not fitted it to be the centre of
\nAryan civilisation in the old times when that civilisation was
\npreponderatingly moral and intellectual. Profoundly artistic
\nand susceptible to material beauty and the glory of the senses
\nthey had neither the large, mild and pure spiritual and emotional
\ntemperament of the eastern nations which produced Janaka,  Valmiki, and Buddha nor the bold intellectual temperament,
\nheroic, ardent and severe of the central nations which produced
\nDraupadi, Bhima, Arjuna, Bhishma, Vyasa and Srikrishna;<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 213<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nneither were they quite akin to the searchingly logical, philosophic and scholastic temperament of the half Dravidian southern
\nnations which produced the great grammarians and commentators and the mightiest of the purely logical philosophers,
\nMadhava, Ramanuja, Shankaracharya. The Malavas were westerners
\nand the western nations of India have always been material,
\npractical and sensuous. For the different races of this country
\nhave preserved their basic temperaments with a marvellous conservative power; modified and recombined, they have been in
\nno case radically altered. Bengal colonised from the west by the
\nChedis and Haihayas and from the north by the Koshalas and
\nMagadhans, contains at present the most gentle, sensitive and
\nemotional of the Indian races, also the most anarchic, self-willed,
\naverse to control and in all things extreme; there is not much
\ndifference between the characters of Shishupal and that thoroughly Bengali king and great captain, Pratapaditya; the other side
\nshows itself especially in the women who are certainly the
\ngentlest, purest and most gracious and loving in the whole world.
\nBengal has accordingly a literature far surpassing any other in
\nan Indian tongue for emotional and lyrical power, loveliness
\nof style and form and individual energy and initiative. The
\nnorth-west, inheritor of the Kurus, has on the other hand produced the finest modern Vedantic poetry, full of intellectual
\nloftiness, insight and profundity, the poetry of Suradasa and Tulsi; its people are still the most sincerely orthodox and the
\nmost attached to the old type of thought and character, while
\nthe Rajputs who are only a central nation which has drifted
\nwestward preserved longest the heroic and chivalrous tradition
\nof the Bharatas. The Dravidians of the south, though they no
\nlonger show that magnificent culture and originality which made
\nthem the preservers and renovators of the higher Hindu thought
\nand religion in its worst days, are yet, as we all know, far more
\ngenuinely learned and philosophic in their cast of thought and
\ncharacter than any other Indian race. Similarly the west also preserves its
\ntradition; the Punjab is typified by its wide acceptance of such simple and practical and active religions as those
\nof Nanak and Dayananda Saraswati, religions which have been
\nunable to take healthy root beyond the frontier of the five rivers;<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 214<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nGujarat and Sindh show the same practical temper by their
\nsuccess in trade and commerce, but the former has preserved
\nmore of the old western materialism and sensuousness than
\nits neighbours. Finally the Maharattas, perhaps the strongest
\nand sanest race in India today, present a very peculiar and interesting type; they are south-western and blend two very different characters; fundamentally a material and practical race,
\n\u2014 they are, for instance, extremely deficient in the romantic and
\npoetical side of human temperament \u2014 a race of soldiers and
\npoliticians, they have yet caught from the Dravidians a deep
\nscholastic and philosophical tinge which, along with a basic
\nearnestness and capacity for high things, has kept them true to
\nHinduism, gives a certain distinction to their otherwise matter-of-fact nature
\nand promises much for their future development.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut the Malavas were a far greater, more versatile and culturable race than any which now represent the west; they had
\nan aesthetic catholicity, a many-sided curiosity and receptiveness
\nwhich enabled them to appreciate learning, high moral ideals
\nand intellectual daring and ardour and assimilate them as far
\nas was consistent with their own root-temperament. Nevertheless that root-temperament remained material and sensuous.
\nWhen therefore the country falling from its old pure moral ideality and heroic intellectualism, weakened in fibre and sank
\ntowards hedonism and materialism, the centre of its culture and
\nnational life began to drift westward. Transferred by Agnimitra
\nin the second century to Vidisha of the Dasharnas close to the
\nMalavas, it finally found its true equilibrium in the beautiful
\nand aesthetic city of Ujjayini which the artistic and sensuous
\ngenius of the Malavas had prepared to be a fit and noble capital
\nof Hindu art, poetry and greatness throughout its most versatile
\nand luxurious age. That position Ujjayini enjoyed until the nation
\nbegan to crumble under the shock of new ideas and new forces
\nand the centre of gravity shifted southwards to Devagiri of the
\nJadhavas and finally to Dravidian Vijayanagara, the last considerable seat of independent Hindu culture and national greatness. The consolidation of the Malavas under Vikramaditya took
\nplace in 56 B.C. and from that moment dates the age of Malava<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 215<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npre-eminence; the great era of the Malavas afterwards called
\nthe Samvat era. It was doubtless subsequent to this date that
\nKalidasa came to Ujjayini to sum up in his poetry the beauty of
\nhuman life, the splendours of art and the glory of the senses.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 216<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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