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Appointment with Kalidasa
an epic which earned him unreserved praise from literary critics and the pet name of 'Raghukāra'.
Kalidāsa opens this epic with a salutation to śiva and Pārvatī, the parents of the universe, blended inseparably with each other like word and sense. A poet's power of words may be limited; but he aspires to rise to the heights of fame. The effort may be inadequate; but the Raghu family hailing from the Sun possesses such dazzling and extra-ordinary qualities as to inspire any man of letters and lead him to burst into a flow of words in describing the worthy kings of this Solar race.
The son of Sūrya was Manu; in Manu's family was born an eminent king, Dilīpa. Physically Dilipa was epuipped with broad chest, massive shoulders and the stature of a Sāla tree, he had the intellectual and spiritual qualities to make him a fine administrator and a valorous leader of men, the kingdom of the earth was in his hands, and his people loved him. Queen Sudakşiņā was a worthy match for him. In the midst of this luxury and splendour Dilipa and his queen suffered from one drawback which deprived them of the happiness of family life and closed the door of other-worldly happiness for them; they had no child. They decided to consult their family priest Vasistha. In their chariot ride to the hermitage, though their hearts were heavy with sorrow, nature and map did not forget to offer them a loving welcome. Gentle breezes removed their fatigue; peacocks sang their praises; tha sārasa birds stood in a line to raise an arch over their heads; the villagers greeted them with jars of fresh ghee made from cows' milk. The royal couple too spoke to the simple village elders, asking them their names and of the trees not familiar to them. When Dilipa reached the hermitage of Vasiştha, it was evening; preparations for the evening fire-oblations were ready; the wives of the sages were feeding the young ones of the deer with handfuls of wild rice; fragrance of the burning incense had filled the atmosphere. Dilipa spoke to the priest and Vasistha found out in Samadhi the cause of the king's misery. Dilīpa was, once, returning from the heaven after serving Indra, and in his eagerness to go back to his wife he had failed to notice the celestial cow Surabhi sitting under the Kalpa tree and had forgotten to pay his respects to her. Surabhi had cursed him for the lapse and so he was childless. The sage advised him to serve Nandini, the daughter of the Kāmadhenu, who was in the hermitage. Dilīpa and his queen immediately decided to act up to the advice. They chose a cottage to live, used darbha blades as a mattress to sleep on, subsisted on wild roots and fruits, and thus, observing the hermit's vow, started attending on the cow. Sudaksiņā would worship the cow morning and evening, Dilipa would follow her like a shadow during the day in her roamings through the forest, feed her now and then with luscious green grass, walk behind her, sit when she sat and sleep after she had gone to sleep. The couple followed this ritual with devotion for twentyone days. Then, one day, Nandini climbed a high and difficult peak of the Himalaya and started grazing there. All of a sudden she gave a cry of distress and Dilipa found that the cow was in the clutches of a lion. Dilipa tried to pull his arrow, but his
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