Appendix I: Kālidāsa’s Dates

To date old texts and ancient writers always pose several problems and in the case of a writer as reticent about himself and his work as Kālidāsa it is not possible to provide accurate and definite dates with the scanty facts we possess at this time. To say that the upper limit might be placed at AD 473, the date of the Mandasor inscription by one Vatsabhatti which reveals some indebtedness to Kālidāsa’s poem Rtusamhāram (The Seasons), and the lower limit a few centuries lower than that date, is not very helpful.

To speak of a sense of the poet’s writings in general as pointing to a particular period in Indian history, viz. the Gupta period, or to a particular king’s reign, Chandra Gupta II (AD 375—414) is by no means proof of conclusive evidence. Franklin Edgerton¹ makes a very valid point about the subjectivity underlying such conclusions. We cannot say with any certainty that the opulence and splendour or the peace and prosperity of the Gupta period is reflected in Kalidasa’s work. The manner in which a writer’s work relates itself to its age and times is complex. The ominous shadow of the French Revolution with its consequences writ large in history hardly falls on the pages of Jane Austen’s novels. Kālidāsa’s plays and poems move in many worlds—mythic, epic and historic. Do the descriptions of Alakā reflect the splendour of cities—Ujjayinī, Vidiśā, Pātalīputra—of the Gupta period, or of an earlier period? Are they in part allusive of epic descriptions of the splendours of Indraprastha, Ayodhya and Lanka? Raghu’s ‘conquest of the quarters’ (digvijaya) may or may not be inspired by Samudra Gupta’s similar conquest in the early fourth century AD, but the conquests of the Pāndava brothers as detailed in the Mahābhārata are certainly part of the literary consciousness of the poet’s epic, Raghuvamśam (Raghu’s Dynasty).

Tradition holds that Kālidāsa was the court-poet of Vikramāditya who ruled at Ujjain; a king who was a great conqueror and hero, a munificent patron of the arts, learned, wise and accomplished; a king who embodied the ideal of kingship in himself; who drove the invading Śakas out of Malwa presumably and established the Vikrama or Samvat (still used) era, in 57 BC to commemorate his victory. Storycycles have gathered round his name and fame: the Vetālapancavimśati (Twenty-five Tales of the Goblin), Vikramāditya-Charitra (Life and Stories of Vikramāditya). Such story-cycles centre round the name of many ancient kings such as the Emperor Aśoka and Udayana, King of the Vatsas, who ruled at Kauśāmbi during the time of Gautama Buddha, in the sixth century BC. We find a reference to the Udayana-tales in Meghadūtam (32). None has been as popular and widespread in the country as the Vikramāditya stories. But historicity has been denied to this Vikramāditya by some scholars who relegate him to the realm of legend and romance.²

The name, Vikramāditya which appears to have been the personal name of an ancient king, legendary or historic, occurs frequently in history. Three kings of that name ruled at Ujjayinī at various times; one of the most famous was Yaśodharman of Malwa who defeated the Huns in the sixth century AD. Some rulers assumed the name Vikramāditya, meaning The Sun of Valour, as a title representative of their heroic exploits and achievements as rulers, the most celebrated of these in history being Chandra Gupta II. Other great rulers have been identified with the Vikramāditya of tradition, such as Gautamī-putra Śātakarni (first century AD) the greatest of the Śātavahana emperors, who is recorded to have been a very handsome man, a great conqueror and a just and compassionate ruler, the qualities attributed to the traditional Vikramāditya. But this identification has also been disputed. The question is to determine which of the many Vikramādityas that history parades was the patron of Kālidāsa. Who is the real Vikramāditya?

Western Sanskritists after Sir William Jones and beginning with A.B. Keith, favour the identification of the Gupta emperor, Chandra Gupta II, as the Vikramāditya, patron of Kālidāsa, and place the poet accordingly in the fourth-fifth century AD. But this is open to challenge.

Kālidāsa’s patron is identified by some scholars³ as King Vikramāditya, son of Mahendrāditya of the Pramara dynasty ruling at Ujjain in the first millennium BC. This dynasty belonged to the Mal was mentioned in history as one of the clans following a republican form of government. It has also been suggested that the description of the Asura Tāraka and his evil forces in Kālidāsa’s long poem Kumārasambhavam, is a veiled reference⁴ to the invading Śakas⁵ who were then in occupation of Sind and were pushing into Malwa. This would be at the close of the first millennium BC and accord with the first century BC date of 57 BC for the poet and of his association with the Vikramāditya who defeated the Śakas.

Another veiled reference in the epic, Raghuvamśam is seen as evidence of a first century BC date for the poet. Devabhūti, the last of the Śunga emperors, who was a weak and dissolute monarch, was assasinated in his bed in the dark by a slave girl dressed as his queen; he is taken as the model for Agnivaṛna the last of the rulers with whom Raghu’s dynasty came to an ignoble end, who was also a weak, self-indulgent and dissolute monarch as Kālidāsa portrays him in the last chapter of the epic; and he seems to have died also in suspicious circumstances though the epic itself speaks of a wasting disease as the cause of his death.⁶ This dating places Kālidāsa at the close of the first millennium BC; Devabhūti ascended the throne in 82 BC and was assasinated in 73 BC on the orders of his minister Vāsudeva⁷ who proclaimed himself emperor establishing the Kạnva dynasty.

One of the three dates put forward for Kālidāsa places the poet in the second century BC during the period of the Śunga Empire (182–73 BC) and makes him the court-poet of Agnimitra Śunga, son of Pusyamitra Śunga, the emperor, ruling at Pātalīputra, the ancient capital of the northern empires of India. Agnimitra was his father’s viceroy for the western part of the empire ruling with the title of Mahārāja at Ujjayinī which had been the second and western capital from Mauryan times. Kālidāsa’s first play Mālavikāgnimitram is about this monarch and has for its theme the romance between him and Mālavikā, princess of Vidharba (Berar). Certain historical events that are referred to in the play relate to the two main power struggles of the period: the conflict in the north-western region of the empire with the Bactrian Greeks and the struggle for control over the southern boundaries against the expanding power of the Śātavahanā empire in the south. In the last act of the play certain interesting facts are contained in a letter from the emperor to his son Agnimitra that might have some bearing on the problem of Kālidāsa’s dates. Puṣyamitra refers to himself in the letter as Senāpati (Commander-in-chief) writing from ‘within the sacred enclosure of the Horse-Sacrifice (Rāja-Sūya Yajna), already consecrated for its performance’ and invites his son and daughter-in-law to the ceremony requesting them to ‘attend without delay’ and ‘setting aside all feelings of anger’ (vigata-roṣa-chetasah). Now, this is a curious phrase that indicates that relations were somewhat strained between the emperor and his son. We know from Śunga coins unearthed in this century, that the Śunga emperors used their hereditary title of Senāpati or Senāni even though Puṣyamitra had performed two Horse-Sacrifices to legitimize and signify his accession to the throne at Pātalīputra after he had assassinated the last Mauryan emperor in public. The Śungas had been hereditary commanders-in-chief of the Imperial Mauryan armies. It is somewhat extraordinary that a poet who lived and wrote more than 500 years after the events referred to here, which would be the case if Kālidāsa were to be placed in the fourth-fifth century AD as many Western and some Indian Sanskritists do, should refer to the small details contained in the letter, particularly to the fact of the strained relations between Agnimitra and his father. As Indians of the past are alleged to be sadly lacking in the historical sense (in the Western sense of the term) this would be even more extraordinary. The letter itself is not structurally important in the play, Mālavikāgnimitram; it serves to glorify the future emperor, Vasumitra, ‘the mighty bowman’, son of Agnimitra who had defeated the Greek cavalry that had captured the sacred horse on the banks of the river Sindhu after bitter fighting and brought back that ‘king of horses’ to his grandfather. Vasumitra is glorified in the passage by a comparison to Amśumat, a mythic hero who had also released the sacrificial horse of his grandfather, Sagara, from captivity and brought it back to the sacrificial enclosure. A fallout of Vasumitra’s bravery in his fierce encounter with invading Bactrian Greeks is that his mother, Queen Dhāriṇī, is assured of her position as Chief Queen, even though Mālavikā had taken the King’s affections away from her. The introduction of the letter into the play therefore seems to suggest a reference to events that were either contemporaneous with the dramatist or within living memory.

Considering these facts, viz. the letter in the last act of the play, Mālavikāgnimitram; the striking resemblance between the events in the life and death of Agnivarṇa in the poet’s epic poem and the last Śunga emperor, Devabhūti; and the veiled references to the Śakas that are perceived in canto 2 of Kumārasambhavam, where the Immortals pray for deliverance from the atrocities of the Asura Tāraka, it is plausible to argue that Kālidāsa lived and wrote at the close of either the middle of the second or the first century BC.

Claims have been made that the feel and tone of Gupta art of the fourth-fifth century AD indicate that it was contemporaneous with the great poet and dramatist. A strong case can be equally made out that the flowering in stone of the art of the Śunga-Śatavāhana period (second century BC to second century AD) reflects the flowering in the verbal arts of Kālidāsa’s poetry. The great friezes of Bharhut and Sanci and the carvings on the great gateways of the stupa in the latter reveal that same juxtaposition of the natural and human worlds seen in Kālidāsa’s poetry, rendered in loving detail and exactitude, but stylized (Sanci—north gate, lowest beam).⁸ In Bharhut and Sanci and in the very recently unearthed Sanghol sculptures in red sandstone belonging to the Mathura School, are carved yakṣis and vṛkṣikas (tree-nymphs) standing under flowering trees and vines, embracing them, leaning against them, clasping flowering sprays, kicking a tree with the left foot⁹ ornamented with anklets or holding a wine cup in one hand. We see a beautiful example of the former motif in the figure of the yakṣi (unfortunately mutilated) who adorns the East Gate bracket at Sanci; she seems to be swinging gracefully in space, kicking the tree (probably an Aśoka) with her left foot loaded with anklets, and clasping a flowering spray with her left hand, while the right is turned around another blossoming branch hanging down.¹⁰ This sculptured beauty reminds us of the beloved in Meghadūtam (74) standing next to the Mandara tree she had nurtured and whose clusters of blossoms ‘bend . . . within reach of her hand’, like a son bowing in respect to a mother and offering her flowers as a gift. The latter motif referred to, of lovely women holding a wine cup in their hands, perhaps to sprinkle the Kesara tree with the wine from their mouths to make it bloom (again the dohada-idea, also referred to in the poem, st. 77) is sculpted in the Sanghol figures. A flowering in stone depicting the teeming energies of nature delineated and placed side by side with curving voluptuous figures of women with swelling breasts—a symbol of the maternal—and a smile and inscrutable look on their faces that seem to convey their awareness of their own youth, beauty and power to enchant men, it can be perceived as parallelling the flowering in verse of that age. Kālidāsa often uses the word ‘pramadā’ to convey this self-conscious feeling of young women exulting in their youth and beauty. The yakṣis and devatās of Bharhut, the Mathura yakṣi¹¹ and the Sanghol figures¹² (also belonging to the Mathura school, though found near Chandigarh) are all pramadās with that same inscrutable smile and look as if all lit within with happiness (Ṛtu.: 3:20); lovely women aware of and exulting in their own youth and beauty. A close-up of one of these lovely yakṣis,¹³ is that of Chūlakoka at Bharhut, displaying intricate patterns drawn with sandal paste on her cheeks; she reminds us of the lady in Ṛtu.: 6.7. In the Sanghol group we also find a depiction of young women intent on looking at themselves in a mirror and adorning themselves (Ṛtu.: 4:13–16) and consciously exulting in their husbands’ love for them. A yakṣa-yakṣi couple¹⁴ seated in a rocky niche (she is seated on his lap) and a deer (?) on one side, are chiselled behind a pair of jugate peacocks, with a melting tenderness in their faces as if lost in love for each other. A definite feeling of kinship, of unity of the arts is evident. Needless to say, that conclusions of this nature can only be drawn tentatively; we have, as already noted, no definite proof of the poet’s dates.

In the final analysis, Kālidāsa’s ‘dates’ are perhaps not that important. Fixing them might bring the satisfaction that solving a mathematical problem which has teased one into deep thought might; but does it add at all to the understanding of the poet’s consummate art or enhance in any way the appreciation of his poetry to vex our minds with this problem, when the time and thought spent on it could be more profitably used in exploring the complexities of his works? The poet himself has chosen not to reveal anything about his life and work. So we might as well leave it at that.

Names and dates in ancient Indian history can be bewildering; the following note and table should be of some help.

Of the sixteen great kingdoms (mahā-janapadas) mentioned in the epic, Magadha with its capital at Rājagrha (very close to the later capital of Pātalīputra—Patna), emerged as the most powerful around 600 BC. The sixth century BC is very important in ancient history, politically and culturally, because it saw not only the rise of Magadha (Bihar) as a power well on its way to becoming an empire, but also the rise of Jainism and Buddhism founded by Mahāvīra and Gautama Buddha as rival religions and systems of thought to Vedic Brahmanism. The empire under Chandragupta Maurya (325–298 BC) and his grandson Aśoka the Great (273–236 BC) included almost all of India, excepting the deep south and extended into Afghanistan and up to Khotan. The capital of the northern empire was at Pātalīputra and later, at Ujjayinī; Chandra Gupta II is mentioned as having shifted his capital from Ujjayinī to Ayodhyā which was more central. But there seemed to have always been four capitals to facilitate the administration of a farflung empire with princes of the royal blood in charge and Ujjayinī had been the western capital from very early times.

In the south the Śātavāhana rulers who are believed to have originated in Mahāraṣtra (some historians think that they belonged to Āndhra-deśa and that they are the Āndhras mentioned in late Vedic texts prior to 600 BC), with their capital at Pratiṣṭṭāṇa (near Aurangābad) gradually spread east consolidating their power in the peninsula, excepting the traditional Chola-country in the deep south. Their kingdom grew into an empire (third century BC to third century AD).

The two powers, as was inevitable, met and clashed along the River Narmadā (Kālidāsa’s Revā) and the encounter of their armies is referred to in Kālidāsa’s Mālavikāgnimitram (Act 5).

We can see that the descriptive phrase that Kālidāsa uses with reference to his heroes, ‘rulers of the earth.’ (the world known to the ancients) ‘from sea to sea’, i.e. the eastern and western oceans bounding India may apply equally to the Śunga, Śātavāhana and Gupta emperors. The mythic rulers in his plays, Purūravas and Duhṣanta actually ruled over a very small part of the country between the rivers Sindhu (Indus) and Sarasvatī-Dṛsadvatī, celebrated in the Ṛgveda. Hastināpura across the river from Delhi was founded by Hasti, the King descended from Bharata, son of Duhṣanta. The line of descent in the lunar dynasty is as given on page 314.

Approximate dates: Second century BC to fifth century AD (as having a bearing on Kālidāsa’s dates)

Mauryan Empire:	325-187 BC; the last emperor was assassinated in public by Puṣyamitra Śunga, C-in-C, at a review of the Imperial armies.
Śunga:	187-72 BC	Śātavāhana (Andhra) Empire—third century BC-third century AD
Puṣyamitra	187-149 BC
Agnimitra	149-141 BC
Vasumitra	133-128 (?) BC
Three kings		Gautamī-putra Śātakarni 70 (?)–AD 95
Devabhūti	assassinated in 72 BC

Śaka rule; rule of Śaiva Kings, Bhara Sivas and Nāgas and Śātavāhana emperors in Malwa and the surrounding regions—‘the Kālidāsa-country’; followed by Gupta rule fourth to sixth century AD.

Imperial Guptas

Samudra Gupta AD 335–375

Chandra Gupta II AD 375–414

Kumāra Gupta AD 415–455