Works of Kalidasa: Edited with an Exhaustive Introduction, Critical and Explanatory Notes and English Translation (Volume II)

This volume contains five kavyas of Kalidasa: Srngaratilakam, Rtusamhara, Meghaduta, Kumarsambhava and Raghuvamsa. The Sringaratilakam is a short poem of thirty-one stanzas on the subject of love where fancy and imagination exercise their sawy. Rtusamhara is a glowing tribute to the glories of the six Indian seasons each of which is vividly described in a separate canto. In Meghaduta, Kalidasa gives us a glimpse of Kalidasa, and the Himalayan regions. His eye in a fire frenzy rolls over the ridges, cliffs, scarps, valleys, dales, glades and gritty upland of mountains. He delineates the story of a bereaved Yaksa in crystal-clear vignettes that are remarkable for their precision and romantic charm. The Kumarasambhava is a tour-de-force of literary effort of a very high order, and is in fact the oriflamme of Indian poetic genius. The story of the Ramayana forms the central theme of Raghuvamsa. In this volume the text is followed by English translation. Each and every Kavya is prefixed with an English Introduction or an Editorial Note. The general introduction has been incorporated in the Introduction to the text of Raghuvamsa to which notes are added to discuss the passages where the commentators differ in their interpretation.