Kalidas (4th – 5th century CE) was the great Sanskrit author and greatest playwright and dramatist of ancient India. Contemporary texts state that Kalidas was a court poet of the king Chandragupta Vikramāditya.
Folklore says that a scholarly princess Vidhyotma once decides to find a suitable groom by testing men in her kingdom for their intelligence. When no man is able to pass the test, the frustrated people sent Kalidas, an uneducated man, for an interview with the princess. Kalidas fares poorly in discussion and is greatly humiliated by the princess. Thus challenged, he visits a Kali goddess temple, get inspired to learn Sanskrit, studies the Puraṇas and other ancient texts, and eventually becomes a great poet.
His classical works are –
- Kumarasambhava – This is an epic poem that describes the life of goddess Parvati since her birth, her marriage to Śiva and the subsequent birth of their son Kumara (Kartikeya).
- Raghuvaṃsa- This is an epic poem about the kings of the Raghu dynasty.
- Ṛtusaṃhara – This is a poem describing the six seasons by narrating the experiences of two lovers in each of the seasons.
- Meghadutam– Kalidas composed Meghadutam (The Cloud Messenger) poem, which is the story of a Yakṣa trying to send a message to his lover through a cloud.
- Shyamala Dandakam – Kalidasa also wrote this to describe the beauty of goddess Matangi.
- Malavikagnimitram – This play tells the story of King Agnimitra, who falls in love with the picture of an exiled servant girl named Malavika. When the queen discovers her husband’s passion for this girl, she becomes infuriated and has her (Malavika) imprisoned, but as fate would have it, Malavika is in fact a true-born princess, thus legitimizing the affair.
- Abhigyanashakuntalam – This play tells the story of King Duṣyanta who, while on a hunting trip, meets Śakuntala, who is the adopted daughter of the sage Kanu and real daughter of Vishwamitra and Menaka and marries her. A mishap befalls them when he is summoned back to court: Śakuntala, pregnant with their child, inadvertently offends a visiting Durvasa and incurs a curse, whereby Duṣyanta forgets her entirely until he sees the ring he has left with her. On her trip to Duṣyanta’s court in an advanced state of pregnancy, she loses the ring and has to come away unrecognized by him. The ring is found by a fisherman who recognizes the royal seal and returns it to Duṣyanta, who regains his memory of Śakuntala and sets out to find her.
- Vikramorvashiyam– This play name means Urvashi Won by Valour and it tells the story of King Pururavas and celestial nymph Ūrvaśī who fall in love. As an immortal, she has to return to the heavens, where an unfortunate accident causes her to be sent back to the earth as a mortal with the curse that she will die (and thus return to heaven) the moment her lover lays his eyes on the child which she will bear him. After a series of mishaps, including Urvaśhi’s temporary transformation into a vine, the curse is lifted, and the lovers are allowed to remain together on the earth.
