Appointment with Kalidasa

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

Page 89

Appointment with Kalidasa
Matali, remaining invisible, pounds him, Dusyanta suspects that his own house may be possessed by evil spirits. He confesses that a person is incapable of knowing the moral blunders he may be committing himself day by day; how could a king then become aware of the doubtful behaviour of his countless subjects 46 If kings and rulers were to be so wakeful and ready to probe their own conscience at every happening in their states, what better could the people ask for!
About the Raghu kings Kālidäsa says : They enjoyed the pleasures of family life only with the awareness of religious duty of providing an heir to the family; they displayed valour and destroyed their enemies only to stabilise the glory of their government; they preferred few words to verbose prattle in order to preserve the prestige of truth, they amassed vast fortunes so that they could gift away their treasures to the
ncedy, distressed and the virtuous. Kālidāsa likes these ideals of kingship and government, these virtues and moral values of a dedicated life.
Kālidāsa describes king Dilipa as a real father to his people and their own fathers as mere proginators. 48 When Dilipa started for the hermitage of Vasistha elderly men and cowherds from various towns and villages came to meet him. Dilipa asked them their names and inquired after their well-being.49 This was a personal contact of the ruling monarch with his humble subjects in their own surroundings. Kautilya states in his Arthaśāstra that a king must sit in his Justice-hall every morning to give audience to his subjects, listen to their grievances and dispense justice forthwith. At these hours people had free and unchecked access to the king. It is obvious that a king like Duşyanta observed this practice without fa 150. An exception was made only when the king was indisposed either physically or mentally.51 The personal contact of the king with his subjects, therefore, was not a gesture to win popularity but was a part of the ideals of royal conduct and moral values taught by discerning theorists. Kālidāsa accepted monarchial rule and was partial to royalty probably because of the self-sacrificing, noble and idealistic life the kings led. At least, the kings whom Kālidāsa knew created and maintained a political state where pursuit and realisation of the four ideals of human life was possible with ease, where happiness and prosperity ruled, where blazing examples of ideal personal life lifted common life also on to a higher plane.
It can be said that social life in ancient days was controlled by the precepts of religion. The observance of social customs and practices was believed by the people to be discharge of religious duty as well. The present attitude to religion is different.