Appointment with Kalidasa

Author(s): G K Bhatt
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 62

Glimpses of Personality
assemblies where she was invited to be present to amuse themselves by discussions on poetry, sciences and arts or by musical sessions and dance exhibitions. These assemblies were known by the name of 'goșthi'. The Kamasutra of Vätsyāyana furnishes an interesting and suggestive description of such gosthis; Bāņa mentions them in his personal account prefixed to his Harşacarita. Among the forms of entertainment provided in these assemblies there were, besides the game of dice, such literary sports as prahelikā, bindumati and samasyāpārti,la in which the elite citizens and poets, as well as the courtesans, participated. Though lowly in birth the courtesans were highly educated and cultured, and that enabled them to mix naturally with the high-ranking intellectuals in society. The examples are Kālidāsa's Urvasi and Sūdraka's Vasantasenā. The odour of immoral life which the word courtesan or prostitute brings to a modern mind is, it will be seen, completely out of place in the ancient context. Further, these courtesans were not inextricably tied down to their low professional status. How otherwise could the marriage of Urvasi and Purūravas, Vasantasenā and Cārudatta, Madanika, and Sarvilaka have been possible ? The fact that a king like Purūravas and Brahmin youths like Cārudatta and Sarvilaka, married courtesans, gaņikäs, must be interpreted in the correct cultural light. When thus understood the prejudice against a courtesan, enforced by the later changed tradition, will be invalid. In the ancient society a courtesan had a distinctive place, and association with her was a kind of social get-together of educated, cultured and art-minded men and women on the level of art and intellectual exchange. So, even if the legend depicted Kalidasa as associating himself with courtesans it cannot be taken as a bad reflection on his moral character; such an assumption would only betray stark ignorance of ancient social conditions and values.
Without, therefore, drawing any conclusions about Kālidāsa's moral character it may be assumed that Kālidāsa may have been a very prominent literary figure in the social goşthis. He may have a special skill in samasyāpürti, and he may have helped many a Brahmin or half-baked poet by solving literary riddles for him. The generosity of mind attributed to him may have been possible due to his position in the royal court; but it also appears to be a trait of his mind and his character.
The gay and pleasure-loving attitude of the poet, which the stories imply, need not be objectionable, unless it is linked with the social morality of men and women, as some readers of Kālidāsa's literature mistakenly do. The denial of any immoral standards or values posed by Kalidāsa is not based, it must be told, on the respect, admiration or devotion which Kalidasa's extra-ordinary literature, his unsurpassed art, engender. The fact is that there is no basis for so-called immorality or looseness of character and behaviour in Kālidāsa's writing. This poet who paints pictures of open and upresticted love does not describe prohibited love. He describes with freedom of mind and art the loves of young people who get united in holy wedlock or of the husband and wife. His royal heroes are the social and political leaders of society