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Supreme Theme : Singära or Love
119
If this were the connotation of 'spiritual love' so called there would be no ground for any dispute or discussion. But the advocates of the transformation' thesis insist on treating the first love and union as simply physical, that is to say, as something low and condemnable, and briog in the Vedānta principle of purifying man and woman of the gross physical urge and lift them to the impersonal level of spirituality so that they may be united in Brahman. I have endeavoured to show that this philosophy, undisputed as a philosophy of life, is not the philosophy of love. It is not applicable at all in the context of art, and Kālidāsa does not countenance it in his poetic design or dramatic construction even by a veiled suggestion. The philosophy of the Spirit shuns love of man and woman as an obstacle in the way of individual emancipation; but it is an essence of art presentation. An important trend in the general Sanskrit literature is of other-worldliness, which teaches renunciation of physical and material pleasures so that the path to individual salvation (mokşa) becomes clear. The literature of art, poetry and drama, as well as the arts like sculpture and painting, did not neglect the spiritual trend of thought. But they did not neglect life also. They stood for faith in life, and the realisation of all the four aims of human existence (puruşārtha), so that while life could be fully lived and enjoyed the soul's graduated and terminal progress towards spiritual liberation could also be achieved. This is the philosophy that art teaches and Kalidasa too holds up.
Is it surprising that a poet and a philosopher like Goethe understood this message correctly ? He says that Heaven and Earth are combined in Sakuntala. It is not the rejection of earth or its 'transformation into heaven; it is the union of earth and heaven. Are we to understand that the significance of Kalidasa's art presentation, which a German poet could grasp precisely, went over the heads of the Indian way of spiritualizing each and everything with the pretence of raising it to the higher level of life ? But what can one say of such critical attempts at falsifying a poet, particularly a poet of the calibre of Kalidasa ?
The picture of love between man and woman on the contemporary social background became disputable in the literary criticism of the present times, Kālidāsa's treatment and philosophy of love came to be distorted; and so, a complete reassessment of the ideas was felt to be necessary for a better and a correct understanding of Kalidāsa's art, if not for anything else. One must now try to see that the roma tic love between man and woman is not the only subject of Kālidāsa's treatment and that it is not the only aspect of married love that the poet visualises,
Love is as all-embracing as life and reflects the multi-coloured variety of life. The affection of a father and the love of a mother for her child are a part of this love. The love for the child is, in fact, an experience which bestows a sense of fulfilment on human life. It is for this reason that Kālidāsa has given a moving expre
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