Talk:Scholars of Hindu Languages, Arts & Law:Kālidāsa
By Vishal Agarwal
Kālidāsa is regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language. He is believed to have lived around the 5th century CE. It is said that he was a very handsome man, but was uneducated and foolish.
A princess of central India at that time was very learned and was a bit arrogant towards other scholars because she thought that they were not as learned as she was. Therefore, the scholars decided to teach her a lesson. She had declared that she would marry only that man who could defeat her in a debate on philosophy.
Finding Kālidāsa to be a foolish man, they came up with a plan to fool the princess so that she marries him. They dressed him up as a scholar and told him to communicate only through sign language, without speaking a single word.
Every time the princess asked Kālidāsa a question, he responded by making meaningless gestures. The scholars who had come with Kālidāsa interpreted these gestures in a fraudulent way and made up answers that impressed the princess. Impressed with these answers that the scholars gave, she accepted her defeat in the debate and married Kālidāsa.
But soon after marriage, she found out what a fool her husband was. In a fit of anger, she insulted him. Kālidāsa was very hurt, and he left his home immediately with the vow that he would return to his wife only after he had become a learned scholar.
He worshipped Devī Kālī and studied very hard for several years till he felt confident to return to his wife. When she opened the door for him, she asked him in a Sanskrit sentence if he had returned as a scholar. To her utter surprise, Kālidāsa immediately composed a few verses, each of which started with one word of the sentence that she had spoken. She was now satisfied that her husband had become a great scholar.
In the next few years, Kālidāsa wrote several plays in Sanskrit. These plays became an instant hit in his lifetime. We have already read about his play on the life of Śakuntalā. The picture on the right shows a scene from this play, as painted by the famous Hindu king and artist Raja Ravi Varma of South Kerala (India). This king, famous for his paintings, lived from 1848–1906 CE.
It is said that Kālidāsa became one of the nine jewels (navaratna-s) of the royal court of King Vikramāditya, about whom we will read later. Starting in the 18th century, his plays began to be translated into several European languages like German and English.
The life of Kālidāsa teaches us how even an illiterate and foolish person can become a great scholar through his own efforts and through Bhagavān’s blessings.