Appointment with Kalidasa

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

Page 80

World of Thought
67
for happiness on this earth and prospects for heavenly pleasures after death, and more particularly the onslaughts of the Buddhist religious thought on the orthodox religion, must have made it essential, at this time, to revive the glory of ancient sacrificial system in all its former splendour. Kālidāsa accepts this spectacular aspect of religion. His king Dilipa waits on the celestial cow in order to obtain a son and counteract a curse in the previous birth, at the advice of his family priest,7 The Raghu kings are great performers of sacrifices. Rāma performed an Aśvamedha to establish his sovereignty; and Kālidāsa records a similar performance by an historical king of the times, Pușyamitra of the Sunga dynasty, father of Agnimitra.8 Raghu did one better, by performing the Sarvamedha, the Viśvajit Sacrifice, at the couclusion of which he gave away all his wealth in gifts, so that when a pupil approached him to beg for the sum of fees to be paid to his preceptor Raghu found his treasury empty, and had to think of attacking Kubera to obtain the money. During the reign of the Raghu kings the river-banks used to be studded with sacrificial pillars proclaiming the kingly glory to heavens. Sacrifices, great and small, had assumed such prestige and importance in the lives of the rich and mighty that even lowly people in the kingdom were conversant with them and the principles behind them. The fisherman in Śäkuntala justifies his way of living by using the analogy of a Srotriya, sacrificial priest. He points out that a sacrificial priest has to slaughter an animal in a sacrifice; but that does not mean that his heart is bereft of tenderness and compassion;' and so his profession of catching and killing fish for food must not be taken as a reflection on his personal character. It is likely that the poets upheld and extolled the institution of sacrifice for a number of reasons, like its being a symbol of the prosperity of life; the impressive grandeur of religious performances the sacrifice implies; the opportunity the sacrifice provides for bringing a host of people together in a religious context with other-worldly outlook; the distribution of wealth by way of sacrificial gifts among a large section of people, and as a link between the rich and common men on the basis of religion.
Since the time of the Brāhmaṇa literature the Vedic gods were gradually losing their importance and new gods connected with sacrificial performance like Prajāpati and Visnu were coming into prominence. The Svetāśvatara Upanişad praises Rudra as the highest principle of religion and philosophy. These three gods represent the new Trinity upheld by the times and approved by the later Hinduism. Kālidāsa has described and praised Prajāpati-Brahma and siva in the Kumarasambhava, 10 Vişņu identified in the personality of Rāma in the Raghuvamśa, and Śiva in all his dramas.12 It appears, however, that Śiva was the favourite deity of Kālidāsa. The picturesque description of the evening worship in the Mahākāla temple at Ujjayini in the Meghadüta, 13 the poetic presentation of the full life of Śiva and Pārvati in the Kumarasambhava, the prayers addressed to Śiva in the nandi verses of the dramas, and the prayer for final liberation from mundane life made to Śiva in the valedictory verse (Bharatavāk ya) of the sakuntala, all point to Kalidāsa's devotion