Kalidasa's Imagery in 'Meghaduta'

Author(s): KRISHNA CHANDRA ROYCHOWDHURY

Source: Indian Literature , March-April 1976, Vol. 19, No. 2 (March-April 1976), pp. 92-
118
Published by: Sahitya Akademi

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24157268

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 Kalidasa's Imagery in
'Meghaduta'

KRISHNA CHANDRA ROYCHOWDHURY

In Sanskrit literature the poet (kavi or vates) is a seer

can see what others cannot. His knowledge comes not from
what he thinks but from what he is. It is with his being. H
does not think logically nor does he analyse scientifically;
he knows. He knows it because he feels it. His knowledge
stems not so much from intellect as from intuition; it is not ac
quired; it is in him because he can be one with what he sees.
It is not rational but spiritual; he can identify himself spiritu
ally with the object he sees. He can write about it because he
knows it the way the others do not. He can describe the dew
because he can make this too, too solid flesh melt, thaw and
resolve itself into a dew-drop! He creates for us what he sees in
his mind's eye. He has an inner kinship with the whole scale
of creation : he becomes the sap of trees, the sparkle of jewels,
the plumage of birds, the crimson of the dawn and the silence
of the majestical "firmanent fretted with golden fire. He is
never satisfied with the external appearance of things; his
yearning is for some undefined inner experience which is remote,
exotic and mystical. He aspires to a vision of beauty and truth
that would reward him with a state of soul far superior to life,
beside which glory, even material wealth, counts for nothing.
Moreover, he has the absolute impartiality of the scientist. Like
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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

a mystic he believes in everything and nothing; he is imperso

nal and yet many-personed in his very personality. In fact, the
individual that he is the result of individualities that he has
lost. He is in the cosmic role of meditation; consumed more
ardently than others by that inner flame which is the beginn
ing of all creation, he gazes upon the stars, panting, tremulous,
all desire. It seems to him that all his being, mounting towards
God, resolves itself into another life, like a burning incense that
melts into vapour. Suspended in the silence of his own world,
he hears the music of seraphic harps than can move the stars.
God, said Browning, is the perfect poet who in his person acts
his own creations.1 The poet has been endowed by God with
something of his own divine power and what he creates bears
the impress of God's own creative activity. Such a poet was
Kalidasa.
The experience of a great poem, says T.S. Eliot, is the ex
perience both of a moment and of a lifetime.2 The majority
of the poems one outgrows and outlives, like those puerile dreams
of youth. Their charm of novelty gradually falls away like a
garment and lays bare the eternal monotony of passion; one
gets tired of those mediocre affections hiding behind "taffeta
phrases, emptiest metaphors, three-piled hyperboles, spruce
affectations, and figures pedantical3". Kalidasa's Meghaduta
is one of those poems which survive in a deeper and calmer
feeling, in a larger whole of experience from here to eternity.
It is celestial, something analogous to heaven. It has a cosmic
splendour, as though the whole of Nature had suddenly chan
ged to warm and mellow gold that one can hold in one's hands.
What a world of light and shade, of sorrow and desire is here !
What a passion for matter, pure and impure, and energy beyond
good and evil, an immense benevolence creating without choice
and preference, out of the need of giving birth to life! It
reveals to us a state of human consciousness which is at once
emotional and intellectual and which achieves its deepest mean
ing and real significance through the prism of aesthetic expres
sion. The beauty of aesthetic expression enables us to enhance

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

the element of enjoyment into appreciation which brings a

intellectual addition to the original intensity of feelin
'transmutes the intensity of poetic experience into int
experience of poetry4'.
All great poetry gives the illusion of a view of life. Wh
we enter the world of Meghaduta, we are inclined to beli
that we are apprehending something which transmute
cise intellectual formulations which are rich and strange, se
but impersonal, aesthetic and universal. As a descriptive a
elegiac poem, it has that indefinable beauty that results f
desire, from enthusiasm and joy, and that is the harmony
life with nature. It describes a life that is rich and varied as
the clouds, as colourful as the flowers that bloom in the rains.
The gently stepping slokas, sonorous and crystalline, resemble
each other like waves; their haunting melody, like the chiming
of evening bells, reverberates in prolonged, multiplied vibra
tions. The transport and transmutation lie most in the manage
ment of the metre, the alternative hard and soft modulations
of words and sounds, the check and rush of the now sundered
and now overlapping lines. However, in the immensity of its
experience and the illusion that it creates, there is also a state of
purity in its sensuousness that, floating above the earth and
mingling with heaven, seems to take us to the "frontiers of
•consciouness, beyond which words fail but meaning still exists5".
It transcends the world of experience into the world of dreams—•
the land of heart's desire, which is infinite, harmonised, azure
and bathed in eternal moonlight. The dark, overhanging
clouds, resplendent with a majestical rainbow, build a bridge
across the vast immensity of the firmanent of experience along
-which we pass from 'troublous emotion to the serenity of con
templation'6 on those cloud-kissing mountains glistening with
everlasting snow—Kalidasa, himself a nature humanised, with
a genial understanding directing self-consciously, a power and
an implicit wisdom deeper than consciousness, has accompli
shed this passage with his symphony of clouds; he has succeeded
in bestowing upon us the ecstasy of pure poetic joy which is as
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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

soft and supple as driven snow, like the blue of the evening after
the benediction of rain.

II

A poet is a poet by virtue of the power he has, greater than

other men, of perceiving intuitively if not rationally, hidden
likenesses, and by his words, as Shelley says, unveiling the per
manent analogy of things by images which participate in the
life of truth. The greater and richer the p >et the more valuable
and suggestive become the images; in the case of Kalidasa one
can scarcely overrate the possibilities of discovering the beauty
of poetic expression through a systematic examination of his
mages, the bricks of fancy with which he built his cloud-capp'd
towers. The study of poetic imagery is without doubt one of
the most important aspects of the study of poetic expression.
There are two different ways of studying imagery: as an inti
mate expression of the poet's mind or as an expression in rela
tion to its effects on the reader. From the poet's standpoint,
it is defined as a little word-picture used by a poet to 'illustrate,
illuminate and eipbellish his thought'. It covers every kind
of simile and metaphor and other rhetorical devices which,
by comparison or analogy, stated or understood, with some
thing else, transmit to us, through the emotions and associations
they arouse, something of the 'wholeness', the depth and rich
ness of the way the poet views, conceives or has felt what he is
telling us. This is how the late Caroline Spurgeon had used
the term in her study of Shakespeare's Imagery. Many writers,
in approaching the problem from the reader's standpoint, have
however concentrated on the underlying idea, on what may
be called the object-matter of the image, which they regard
as of prime importance. D.G. James considers the main use
of imagery to be 'the expression of imaginative idea or object'.
Poetic images, according to this viewpoint, do not necessarily
appeal to the visual or other senses but demand primarily an
intellectual awareness of the implications. Imagery has a
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 INDIAN LITERATURE

logical function in poetry, its business being to persuade th

reader and compel his understanding. An image is effecti
if its controlled suggestions illuminate the idea concerned an
cause the reader to forget irrelevant associations. A poet
image is thus a relationship between two terms, made so tha
the illustrative term, the subject-matter, illuminates, expan
and perhaps fuses into the underlying concept contained
the object-matter. The unexpressed or suggested part of the
poetic imagery, although linked up with the expressed, is dev
loped by a peculiar process of controlled suggestion, call
vyanjana in Sanskrit, which is taken to be the soul of poetry
The very essence of poetry is, it is believed, that which is n
expressed. The suggested sense is a source of greater char
through its capacity of concealment. Poetry is the expressio
of an aesthetic idea through suggestive imagery which calls in
being the unexpressed or the inexpressible. The realisation
(pratiti) of rasa (Stimmung) is nothing more than its manifesta
tion (abhivyakti) by the power of suggestion resulting in an
extraordinary state of aesthetic .enjoyment (asvada). What is
manifested is not however the rasa itself but its relish, not the
mood but its revelation in the form of subjective or aesthetic
enjoyment in the perceptive reader (samajika) ?
It is by his choice and use of images that Kalidasa is the
most remarkable of all the po* ts of all times. Every word in
him is a picture. The unparalleled wealth of his imagery shows
itself in that royal use of metaphor which is the most distingui
shing quality of his style. Kalidasa's metaphors stem from
the poet's strong and constant impulse to create life or to trans
fer life from his own spirit, as Coleridge says, to things apparently
lifeless. His sense-perceptions are the most potent means by
which he articulates his spiritual intuitions. The image he
creates gives quality and atmosphere and conveys emotion in a
way no precise description, however clear and accurate, can
possibly do. The fulness of his soul overflows in noblest meta
phors that move and stir us in a way impossible to account for
rationally and logically. They stir us because they make our
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 KALIDASA S IMAGERY IN MEGHADUTA

sorrows and desires quiver beneath the music of words and th

panoply of colours; their sophistry notwithstanding, they touc
and awaken something in us which we call spiritual at the roo
of our being.
Though his century is still to be known, Kalidasa is reaso
nably assigned to the court of Chandragupta II, Vikramaditya,
between a.d. 318 and 410. The Gupta empire was a vast
sprawling area with its productive base in new village settle
ments largely inhabited by food-gathering aboriginals. Wealth
was concentrated in a few ports and cities. Feudalism from
above made life easy and the courts, both central and provin
cial, shone with splendour and luxury. Modes of life in cities
differed from those in the new village settlements. In his
Meghaduta Kalidasa spoke about the beauties of life in these
urban centres (pura) and the rural hinterland (paura-janapa
das). His imageries were largely influenced by the beauties
of nature and life in these emerging settlements.
The fabulous world of Meghaduta is purely the product
of an ardent imagination which lifts us to a plane of ecstasy
where all our desires quiver on the threshold of joy, yet ready
to accept life's sumptuousness in the fulness of love. The sce
nery of his work is a universal paradise of beautiful objects.
Everything there obeys one law of earthly grace; morality is
aesthesised, intellect suffused, sensuous beauty shorn of the
languor of the senses. The poetry of the senses does not diss
solve itsf If in sensuous weakness because of Kalidasa's style, his
aim at burdened precision, the energy of phrase and his artistic
vigilance.
In Meghaduta, Kalidasa gives life to lifeless things, as Aristotle
puts it, and no poet except Shakespeare has made such cons
tant and such varied use of nature. Kalidasa's warm huma
nism, influenced and encouraged perhaps by Buddhism, found
'tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones
and good in everything9'. These and the sensitive appreciation
of trees and plants, clouds, hills and rivers as living objects,
touched by the heavenly alchemy of his poetic sensibility, gave
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 INDIAN LITERATURE

his poetry an exquisite grace, grandeur of background and

scenic variety. The suave purity, grace and clarity of his style,
the elegant ease and the majestic eloquence of his verses, with
sometimes a dreamlike quality that prolongs the spell in ever
expanding ripples, tend to make his work of art perfect—a
perfection which is formal, harmonious and intellectual. The
incomparable beauty of his images, his subtle ingenuity and
the melody of his verse have one dominating passion: to dis
cover the fundamental unity of creation under contradictory
appearances of divesrse elements. He takes all creation for
his province: the fauna and flora, the hills and rivers, the trees
and flowers, the deer and the bees—all that the human mind
perceives and conceives, constitutes for him an immense reser
voir upon which he freely draws. In his poetry all these images
become poetic. They dance in this perfumed boudoir with
their own rhythm, graceful and suave, to the harmony of the
music of words and by the glittering light of their own splendour.
Kalidasa's great novelty lies in the advance that he makes
from the purely decorative to the functional image: there is a
complete change in the destination of the image. In his poetry,
thought and emotion express themselves in terms of images in a
simultaneous mental operation. In fact, he was thinking in
images, in order to arouse the emotion more directly in the
course of unfolding and development of the idea. His images
come with great spontaneity under the stress of heightened
emotion. The great bulk of his metaphors and similes are
derived from direct observation of the things in nature and
in life. The rest are largely imaginative and fanciful, by far
the greater number being personifications, chiefly of states,
qualities and emotions. The Meghaduta is one of the summits
of Kalidasa's art because every moment we find in it that inti
mate fusion of human emotion and poetic vision, the superb
balance of poetic imagery and the ecstasy of passion which is
personal. and yet the most universal. His imagery animates
the world of the senses apprehended through it and admits of
infinite variety in quality, intensity, discretion and symbolic
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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

function. It seems that in Meghaduta, Kalidasa blossoms forth

in all the plenitude of his nature.

Ill

The study of poetic imagery is without doubt one of the most

important innovations in the literary appreciation of the Me
ghaduta. In this descriptive elegiac poem, Kalidasa has taken
the whole universe for his field of experience and it is not sur
prising that his images display the utmost variety. Here the
poet's sensibility seeks to produce something beyond a pleasing
decorative picture. The theme of the poem requires something
more : the world of nature that is described here is charged with
human passion. The images of clouds and hills, trees and
flowers, the rivers and dales are not mere decorations intended
to embellish a description. Their emblematic value has been
superseded and the part they play become symbolical. His
images of nature are many and varied, the most striking being
those of the cloud which is looked upon as the messenger of love.
The poet has the gift of making the insubstantial actual and
sometimes can endow the inanimate things of nature with a
greater reality than they have themselves:
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.40

The clouds, soft and supple and-in ever-changing shapes, have

almost a cosmic splendour, as though the whole of nature has
suddenly changed to gather in the overhanging firmament
the depths of sorrow and desire of the Yaksha in exile:

Ashadhasya prathama divase meghamaslis-htasanum

Vaprakridaparinatagajaprekshaniyam dadarsa |;2i|

On the first (or the last: prasama) day of Ashadha, the month
preceding the onset of the rains, the banished Yaksha, the lover
unknown, who is all desire, saw a dark cloud clinging around

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

the girdle of the hill ; it was the hill of Ramagiri where in its
van woodland Rama and Sita had once lived in their da
exile. This association heightens the pangs of his sorrow a
desire, separated as he is by his master from his beloved
at Alaka, up in the mighty Himalayas. The wondrous beau
of the dark overhanging clouds, rolling in one broad sw
across the sky over the wooded valley seems to envelope ev
thing around in a mantle of sorrow, which, mingling with des
and longing for the beloved, creates the atmosphere of a m
choly passion, perfumed with a peculiar magic of exqu
sweetness and supreme poetry. In the ecstasy of his love
sorrow, made intense by desire, the sable cloud looks like
mature (parinata) elephant, holding his beloved, the hill, i
close embrace. All his passion empurples the dark cloud an
the imagery of elephant in the act of love is drawn upon
give his desire its wings. The past and the present are conf
ded in this beautiful imagery and an exaltation escapes from
emotion of wonder (vismaya) which is the beginning of all
The cloud, says the poet, is nothing but a congregation
smoke, fire, water and wind, but the lover's eye in fine fre
rolling, gives this airy nothing a local habitation and a na
Dhuma-jyotih-salila-marutam sannipata kva meghah |!5||
Jatam vamse bhuvanavidite pushkaravartakanam
Janami tvam prakritipurusham kamarupam maghonah ||6||

Since love looks not with eyes but with the mind, the lov
the poet and the lunatic, says Shakespeare, are of imagina
all compact.11 The banished Yaksha, blinded by desire,
gets the distinction between the inanimate and the anima
Kamarta hi prakriti-kripanascetanacetaneshu [5]. Troubled]* by
thought of his pining wife, he wants to send to her up in the c
of Alaka in the land of heart's desire his message of love on
wings of the cloud:
Jimutena svakusalamaim harayishyan prabrittim ]|4||

It is significant that the rain-cloud is called Jimuta : it m

'life confined' because in ancient India all external activity
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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

particularly mobility in connection with business—ceased with

the beginning of rains. Jimuta also refers to the life-giving
water confined in the cloud; in this context, the rain-cloud with
the tidings of love confined in its soul is expected to save the life
of the Yaksha's wife.
To the lonely wife pining for her husband (pathikavanita),
the raincloud is a harbinger; it heralds the date of return of
her husband from his long sojourn; her drooping heart feels
confident that with the onset of rains her husband will come
back from his business abroad :

Tvamarudham pavanapadavimudgrihitalakantah
Prekshishyante pathikavanitah pratyadasvastyah |;8|!

The cloud sails gently on across the sky which is the path of
the wind (pavanapadavi) ; as it climbs the sky (tvamarudham)
it becomes difficult for any one to stay away from one's belo
ved; in fact, even the happy heart clouds over when he sees
the dark rain-clouds rolling in all its glory across the firmament:

Meghaloke bhavati sukhinohopyanyathabritti cetah ||3|]

The sable cloud (payoda) creates desire (kautukadhanahetoh) ;

it can assume any form and shape it likes (kamarupam) ; it
is the friend and benefactor of the lovelorn : santaptanam tvamasi
saranam (7). But sometimes it comes sweeping across the
sky, "armed at points exactly cap-a-pe", with all its majesty to
teach the lovers a lesson—the pangs of separation:
Kah sannaddhe virahavidhuram tvayyupeksheta jayam |I8||

The word sannaddhe is significant; it means 'risen'; as a figura

tive word, it means 'armed'—signifying the power imbedded
in the dark clouds.
The rain-cloud with its life-giving waters makes the earth
verdant and fertile:

Kartum yacca prabhabati mahimucchilindhramavandhyam |!11||

Agriculture depends on the mercy of the rains ; knowing this,

the village damsels look upon the sable cloud with wistful eyes

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

(piyamanah) ; black in the shade, simple and unsophisticated,

these eyes have ali| the depths of desire. The cloud is advised
to drench the freshly ploughed plateau with his rains so as to
make it fragrant and to proceed north after relieving his burden:
Tvayyayattam krishiphalamiti bhruvikaranathijnaih
Pritisnigdhairjanaipadaavadhulocanaih piyamanah
Sadyah sirotkashanasuravi kshetramaruhya malam
Kincit-pascad vraja laghugatirbhuya evottarena J] 1611

Sirotkashana, according to Monier Williams, means 'turning up

the soil with a plough; mala is the name of a barbarous tribe or
people referred tci in the Mahabharata; kshetram stands for
damsel; suravi means affecting pleasantly: su-rav.12 The cloud
is advised to lie upon (aruhya) the young damsel of the Mala
tribe (malam kshetram) and to plough her in amorous love
(sirotkashanasuravi) so that she crops. He is to lie with her in a
secluded spot (kincil pascal) and after relieving himself of his
burden of love (rain) -laughugatirbhuya—he should proceed
quickly to the north. It is difficult to understand why sadyah
sirotkashanasuravi should be the adjective of malam kshetram which
would have meant 'fragrant land because of recent ploughing'.
Kalidasa was writing at a time when village settlements were
being introduced by the Guptas in the hitherto uncleared terri
tories of the south inhabited by the food-gathering savages.
In developing this imagery, he was probably influenced by the
early tribal custom of marrying earth, the mother goddess, to
the cloud, the sky-god, who fertilizes the bare earth with genial
showers. It was an ancient custom, says Frazer in his Golden
Bough13, widespread among the nations of antiquity. It was
an essential part of the fertility rites, observed for the explicit
purpose of promoting the growth of vegetation. The tribal
people often regarded the cloud as the male principle by whom
the earth, the female principle, is fertilized. In some cases,
the union of powers of vegetation was simulated by the real
union of the human sexes. It was dramatic representation
of the mystic union of the cloud and the earth. In Kalidasa's
imagery, the village damsel is the living representative of the
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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

earth, and the union of the janapadavadhu, masquerading as the

spirit of vegetation, with the dark rain-cloud makes harvest
possible. It reminds us of Shakespeare's imagery in Antony
and. Cleopatra: "He ploughed her and she cropped."
The hill of Amrakuta with its steeps covered with wild mango
groves looks a little pale, albeit golden, studded here and there
with ripe fruits. With the sable cloud on on the crest, the hill
looks like the swollen breast of mother earth in advanced
pregnancy expecting the harvest in autumn:
Channopanthah parinataphaladyotibhih kananamrai
Stvayyarudhe sikharamachalah snigdhabenisavarne
Nunam yasyatyamaramithunaprekshaniyamvastham
Madhye syamah stana iva bhuvah seshavistarapanduh j|18||

The rain-cloud is the friend of the mountain of Ramagiri;

in summer it gets heated up by the blazing sun. The first drops
of rain as they fall on the smooth slope of the hill turn into
vapour. It seems that the hill pining for its beloved rain-cloud
is shedding its tears of joy which, heated by the warmth of love,
turn into vapour: snehavyaktisciravirahajam muncato bashpamush
nam (12)
A beautiful rainbow, stemming from the crest of the ant
hill, hovers over the horizon; the sable cloud, fringed with the
rainbow, which has all the radiance of a diamond, looks like
Krishna decked with the peacock's plume in his hair :
Yena syamam vapuratitaram kantimapatsyate te
Barheneva sphuritarucina gopaveshasya vishnoh ||15||

The dark cloud with lightning as his consort is a friend of

the damsels in distress. In the city of Ujjayini when the young
damsel torn by the pangs of desire goes stealthily along the road
in the collied night to the tryst at her lover's, the cloud shows
her the way with soft flashes of lightning which look like the
soft lines drawn by gold on a dark slate. The young woman,
fearful but impatient, will faint if the cloud roars and rains :
Saudamanya kanakanikashasnigdhaya darsayorvim
Toyotsargastanitamukharao ma sma bhurviklabastah ||37||

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

On its way to the north, the cloud is to stop over at the

temple of Lord Siva who is Mahakala (Time or Eternity). At
dusk when the evening prayers begin in the temple, the cloud
with its sonorous rumblings shall act as the tabor (pataha) ; its
rumblings tend to rise above the chant of evening prayers. The
tall trees rising towards the evening sky look like the raised
hands of Siva in his tempestuous dance. In the ecstasy of
passion in the midst of the dance the Lord recalls the scene when
he killed the demon Gajasura and danced with its skin bedaub
ed in blood. Th; dark overhanging cloud, empurpled as a
new hibiscus by the rays of the dying sun, is to simulate the
scene for Siva and satisfy his thirst for blood. His wife Bhavani
will appreciate this simulation by the cloud as an act of
obeisance :

Pascaduccairbhujataruvanam mandalenabhilinah
Sandhyam tejah pratinavajapapushparaktam dadhanah,
Nrittarambhe Hara Pasupaterardranagajineccham
Santodvegastimiu nayanam drishtabbaktirbhavanya ||36||

The cloud by nature is beautiful (prakritisubhaga) ; it can

transform itself in heavenly flowers (pushpameghikritatma) that
bloom in the holy waters of the Ganges coming down from
paradise {vyomgangajala). As it stretches itself out in the vast
immensity of the heaven like the elephant of paradise (sura
gajah iva) with its hinder parts in the sky (vyomni pascardhal
ambi) to siphon off the water from the Ganges, a simulacrum
of the confluence of the Yamuna and the Ganges will be created
(asthana-upagatayamunasamagama iva); this is because the dark
shadow of the cloud will fall upon the limpid waters of the
Ganges which have all the whiteness of the rock-crystal (accha
sphatikavisadam ambhah).
At long last the cloud-messenger sails over to the mighty
Himalayas where the Kailasa mountain glistens with everlast
ing snow. It is said that the pinnacles of this mountain were
made up of the black soil butted up by the white bull of Lord
Siva; the sable cloud on the snow-clad peaks looks like the black

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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

soil on the horns of the white bull: Tasya sringe nishannah sobham
subhratrinayanavrishotkhatapankopameyam(52). The sable cloud
is as blue as ground collyrium and the snow-clad Kailasa is as
white as the newly-severed ivory. With the cloud on top of
the snow-white mountain it looks like the dark blue mantle on
the white shoulders of Haladhara: Snigdhabhinna-anjana-abhe
tvayi tatagate sadyahkritta-dviradadasana-chedagaurasya tasya adreh
mecake vasasi amsanyaste sati Halabkritah iva (59).
Masses of dark clouds clinging around this hill of pleasure
(Kailasa is called kridasaila) sometimes look like steps to the
heaven-kissing mountain. The rain-cloud is called upon to
divide itself into soft, supple steps, restraining the water inside
its soul, so as to make it comfortable for Parvati, Siva's consort,
to climb the hill :

Bhangivaktaya viracitavapuh stambhitantarjalaughah

Sopanatvam vraja padasukhasparsamarohaneshu

In olden days it was believed that thunder and diamonds

are made of the same elements. The rains come down from
the dark cloud when struck by lightning; so does water gush out
of the body of the rain-cloud, now transformed into a bath
tank, when the passionate damsels of paradise strike him with
bangles studded with diamonds:

Tatravasyam valayakulisodghattanodgirnatoyam
Neshyanti tvam surayubatayo yantradharagrihatvam ||61|1

It was by the vigorous multiplicity of his images that

Kalidasa surpassed all other poets. He had that rare faculty
of finding a form of expression for every form of sensibility. And
the key to the celebrated psychological richness with which
Kalidasa is credited lies no doubt in his marvellous mastery
of expression. The superb balance of his slokas, the caressing
rhythm and ecstasy of passion, all express with rare felicity that
wonderment of the mind faced with something that can be
described only in terms of an image. Kalidasa's imagery rea
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 INDIAN LITERATURE

ches the height of its perfection in the last two slokas of Pu

vamegha:
Dhunvanvataih sajalaprishataih kalpavrikshansukani
Chayabhinnah sphatikavisadam niivisestam nagendram |]62|j

We have here a metaphor in action which springs up suddenly

and makes the whole idea spring up with it. According to
Monier Williams, prishata means either a drop of water or the
spotted antelope; if the word is derved from the verb prishr
'sajalaprishataih' would mean 'sprinkling with drops of water'—
a dull and prosaic description. On the other hand, prishata
might refer to the antelope which originally referred to the
Indian Black-buck; 'sajalaprishata' then means the black-buck
speckled with white spots. The dark cloud shedding its rains
looks like a flock of black-bucks with fine white spots. As it
strides through the woodland, frisking and fawning through the
trees of desire, the churlish chidings of the troubled wind shake
the new leaves of the trees which are as fine as silk. It seems
that the mass of fine, darling leaves quiver like young maidens
in fearful expectation (kalpavrikshamsukani). How rich in
suggestion is this image, although the shades of meaning have
been barely hinted at, which partakes both of the ecstatic and
restrained adoration in which the caressing cadence of the
frisking cloud mingle with the soft murmur of the silken leaves
amidst the woodland of desire ! The word chayabhinnah probably
means chiaroscuro; according to Monier Williams, chayabhinnah
means 'divided in radiance, reflecting light from various sur
faces'. The snow-clad Kailasa mountain is described as 'white
as rock-crystal {sphatikavisada) ; a rock-crystal is of varying sur
faces, like a mountain; when sunlight falls on the driven snows
of the mountain with varying surfaces, it is divided up into light
of different wave-lengths of which it is composed. If the beam
of light which emerges after dispersion is allowed to fall upon
the screen of dark cloud, a spectrum is observed. This is
probably what Kalidasa had in mind when he used the word
chayabhinnah. On the other hand, if the reading is chayavin

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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

nasphatikavisadam', the meaning of the imagery changes. It

would mean that as the dark rain-cloud, like a flock of black
bucks speckled with white spots, runs through the woodland,
the' tremulous leaves of the trees of desire will create a beautiful
chiaroscuro on the snows of the mountain whose whiteness is
divided in radiance because of difference in surface. The grace
and beauty of this luminous imagery is one of the finest examples
of poetic expression by an expert, sensitive artist in the full
possession of his genius. It shows the graceful variety of Kali
dasa's images free from the insipidity of monotonous repetition,
and proves once again his mastery of exposition which breathes
life into the poetic convention. It is an ardent idea, the inevi
table language of a mind that is as rich and varied as the
clouds. The sonorous words, the rhythms themselves, are in
direct accord with the grasping of the emotion with the shades
of internal meaning. Kalidasa's imagery attains its own form
of perfection only because it has style, its own style.
The imagery changes in the next sloka. The sable cloud
shedding the rains is likened to a woman's dark hair enmeshed
in a net studded with pearls: salila-udgaram abhravrindam mukta
jalagrathitama lakam. This miracle of a splendid word-picture
dwells in our memory as the most beautiful thing that it is possible
to draw with words; as we analyse these images, their in
definable beauty breakes up into an infinity of stars, like the
moonbeam in a limpid lake.

IV

A study of Kalidasa's images in Purvamegha reveals that

there is one quality or characteristic in them which stands out
more sharply than others, and that quality is movement:
nature and the objects of nature in motion, suave and graceful.
It is the life of things and their movement that he seizes upon
and portrays in his images and which makes his style what it is.
He endows inanimate objects of nature with a sense of life and

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

when they are in motion, he infuses activity by attributing to

them human feelings and actions.
This fact of Kalidasa's love of movement permeates many
of his images which spring to life and enable us almost to hear
the murmur of the rivers as it flows noiselessly on, cold and swift
to the eye. One of his outstanding characteristics is the way
in which, by introducing verbs of movement about things which
are lifeless, he gives life to the whole sloka:

Adreh sringam harati pavanah kim svidityunmukhibhi

rdrishtotsahascakitacakitam mugdhasiddhanganabhih [jl4||

The cloud moves gently on, rocked softly by a friendly breeze:

mandam mandam nudati pavanah ; the birds sing sweetly on his left,
an auspicious sign; vamascayamnadati madhuram catakaste sagandhah.
Catakas are the picd-crested cuckoos that come to India from
Africa sometime in May or June and return in October. They
are the herald of the rains. The word sagandha means proud
(.sagarva) or relative, because members of the same family smell
alike. They are the relatives of the cloud because they breed
in the rainy season. The male birds proudly give out a shrill
mating call with the onset of the rainy season. In the long journey
to the Manasa lake in Kailasa, the flamingoes (rajahansah) shall
accompany the cloud : manasotkah rajahansah nabhasi akailasat
bhavatah sahayah sampatsyante. The white herons (yalakah), it is
believed, mate behind the clouds. They fly in a white circle
against the dark clouds like a garland of flowers. It seems they
are making a deep obeisance to the rain-cloud. How beautiful
is this image of the rainy season, how suave, soft and graceful
it all looks ! One can almost hear the music of luminous mo
tion, of unity and harmony that, like the symphony of an
orchestra, calls up to inform and vitalize the beautiful sloka
which shows Kalidasa's absorption in the life of things in nature.
Of the large number of images of animals, the most out
standing are those of birds and bucks. The special aspect of
their life which attracts him is their movement: suklapangaih
sajalanayanaih svagatikritya kekah (22). bandhupritya bhavanasiki

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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

bhirdattanrittopaharah (32), dirghikurban patumadakalam kujitam

sarasanam (31). All these quick, graceful movements of bird life
fascinated Kalidasa and he painted them in loving exactitude.
The swift and nimble movement of the Indian black-buck and
its beautiful eyes always inspired him and he never tired of this,
image :
Dagdharanyeshvadhikasurabhim gandhamaghraya corvyah
Sarangaste jalavamucah sucayishyanti margam ||21||

The damsels of Dasapura have eyes like those of the black

buck; black in the shade, darker in the centre, these eyes have
as it were depths of different colours:
Pakshmotkshepadupaf.vilasatkrishnasaraprabhanam ||47|J

These eyes with their long curved lashes looked straight towards,
the cloud; they look like black bees darting forth towards the
white flowers nodding gently in the breeze: kundakshepanugama
dhukarasrimushmatmabimbam (T7). Again, in the temple of
Mahakala, the dancing girls, soothed by the balmy drops of rain
in their wounds of love, fix on the cloud the amorous glance of
their eyes. These eyes are large, black and of profound depth;
the long eyelids are chiselled expressly for their long, amorous
looks. Sharp and penetrating, the long, amorous glances of
their eyes seem to dart forth like a line of bees towards the cloud :.
They recalled those joys of love, that fever of happiness they had
enjoyed, the passion, the ecstasy and delirium. The memory
of voluptuous love and the melancholy of passion blended them
selves in the depths of those beautiful dark eyes which look
like a swarm of bees rushing madly towards the flowers :
Namokshyante tvayi madhukarasrenidirghan katakshan |]35[|

As the cloud moves on, there are flowers, flowers all the way,
each so lovely in their individuality that each needs a line of
melody, a flowing, caressing rhythm to describe its beauty. At
the beginning of rains, bloom kutaja kusuma on the slope of the
hill; avirbhuta-prathama-mukulah kandilih; sucivinnaih ketakaih;
sphutitakamalam; and the yuthikajalakani that need the sprinkle
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 INDIAN LITERATURE

-of the rains for their survival. The flowers, like women, see
to be getting ready for the fetes in the rains. The plain, gent
rising, is like a great unfolded mantle with a green velvet ca
bordered with a fringe of flowers. It stretches under the bu
of a low hill, known as Nicaih, riddled with stone-houses reek
with the perfume of flowers that served as the bed of love.. T
flowers that bloom on this hill are a little pale with age, lik
the harlots with a. world of experience.
Kalidasa is interested in colour not chiefly for its colour
value, as in an artist, but rather as it fits in with the mood
his poetry, of the pathos of love, of the intensity of sorrow and
desire. This explains the paucity of colour images and the li
ted panoply of colours. What is significant about the colour
images is the change and contrast in colours and the poe
delight is in the shifting of colours which is another manifes
tion of his delight in movement and in life, and his yearning for
harmony amid contrasts. The sensuous antitheses of the colou
contrasts are in direct accord with the diversities of nature :
they create a beautiful world as dreams are made on: white
herons against the dark rain-cloud (khe avaddhamala valaka),
the sable cloud in the snow-clad mountain (snigdhavinnanjanave
.sadyahkritladviradadasanacchedagaurasya), the chiaroscuro on the
snows (chayavinnah sphatikavisadam) ; the rain-cloud is not exactly
black, it is dark blue : yena te syamam vapuh sphuritaruchina varhena
gopavesasya vishnoh iva; parinata-phala-syam-jambuvanantam ; bhar
tuh kanthacchaviriti ; sarngi no varnacaure. A bizarre, sombre and
mysterious picture emerges when the colour contrast is one of
red and black: Sandhyam tejahpratinavajapapushparaktam dadhanah.
Kalidasa's colour images animate the world of the senses appre
hended, and the colour of the objects described colours and
moves our own sensibility: gajasya ange bhakticchedaih viracitam
bhutim iva; lalitavanitapadaragankiteshu, srasta-ganga dukulam ala
,kam; muktajalagrathitam alakam. Musical poetry, decorative
imagery, conceits, abortive metaphors and verbal images, the
unilinear process of the analogy which subjects syntax to no
-violence—in all .these Kalidasa was a master. He practised
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 KALIDASA S IMAGERY IN MEGHADUTA

them lilce a virtuoso and his intellect was like a jewel whic
gleamed in the ecstasy of his poetry like a spectrum of lig

It is one of the aims of this study to show how the deve

ment of Kalidasa's imagery becomes peculiarly manifest in t
way the images adapt themselves to the sylvan atomsph
of love, sorrow and desire. These images are not someth
separable ; they are not inserted from outside, they evolve out o
the context. They are an inherent part of the theme of th
poem. The imagery unobtrusively reflects the mood and pa
sion of the lover in exile, it turns the imagination of the rea
in a certain direction and helps to prepare the atmosphere,
that the state of feeling for the aesthetic appreciation of the po
imagination is reached. The method that is followed is subt
and indirect. Things are only suggested, intimated, hinted
they are seldom expressly stated.
It is by the use of river-imagery that all the wealth of nature
enters into the poem. The rivers lend the poem not only b
ground and atmosphere, but also vital connection of the obje
of love in her varying moods. Woman and the rivers stand
a continuous relationship in the passionate description and
imagery serves to emphasize this kinship. Kalidasa's art of
personification, of endowing the elements of nature with the
breath of life, creates images of luminous beauty and radiance.
It is certainly not true that he consciously translated into the
language of imagery what he had to say about the rivers on the
way. On the contrary, his imagery is an integral component
of his poetic imagination; it discloses to us the manifold beauties
of nature which, with the heavenly alchemy of Kalidasa's art,
mirrors the love and sorrows of human life. Kalidasa is impres
sed by the beauty of the rivers but what he is interested in is
the life of the river, its course and movement, how like a living
being it swells, rages, frowns, smiles and dimples. His images
of the varying moods of the young wife in terms of the rivers

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

stir our feeling to vibrate in harmony with the imagination o

the poet, and enable us to appreciate the relationships, hither
only dimly apprehended, which satisfy the particular as well
the universal emotional demand.
In Sanskrit literature, the heroine may be of eight types in
accordance with the diversity of her condition or situation in
relation to her beloved one : vasaka-sajja, kalahantarita, abhisarika,
proshita-patika, khandita, svadhina-patika, virahotkanthita, vipralavdha.
The woman decked in all the splendour of her dress and or
nament in expectation of her lover is called vasaka-sajja. Kali
dasa draws a beautiful picture of the river Reva as a woman in
vasaka-sajja whose desire accentuated by the pangs of separation
(virahotkanthita) becomes the more acute:

Revam drakshyasyupalavishame Vindhyapade visirnam

Bhakdcchedairiva viracitam bhutimange gajasya |I19||

The key to the imagery is the significant word visirnam : it might

mean lean or diffused. In summer, there is very little
water in the river which flows painfully amidst the splitting rocks
and pebbles at the foot of the Vindhya mountain. The river
straggling in irregular lines through the rocks looks like the
decoration on the rugged back of the elephant. This image of
the river reminds us of the woman in sorrow (virahotkanthita)
lying in penitence at the foot of her beloved, the Vindhya moun
tain. On the other hand, the word visirnam might be derived
from vij-sri (.srayati/te) which means, according to Monier
Williams, "to go asunder, to be separated or diffused". Malli
natha interprets the word visirnam as samantato visirmaram
which means 'diffused in different and irregular lines'. The
river Reva, like a woman in vasakasajja, is waiting for her
beloved rain-cloud in impatient expectation fully dressed up
for the tryst. Bhakticchedaih means 'divided lines or streaks of
painting or decoration (esp. the separating or distinguishing
marks on the forehead, nose, cheeks, breast and arms' (M.W.).
Bhutim is ornament or decoration. The lower steeps13 of the
Vindhya hill is, because of the splitting rocks, rugged and un

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 RAUDA'S IMAGERY IN MEGHADUTA

even, like the back of the elephant. The river Reva comes down
along the rugged back of the hill in diffused, irregular lines
that remind us of the ornamental decorations on the rough
exterior of the elephant dressed up for the occasion. In Sans
krit literature, the elephant is the symbol of voluptuous love;
the river-tracks standing out in narrow streaks against the
lower steeps of the rugged mountain look like the streaks of
painting and decorations of a voluptuous woman waiting for
her lover. This dual picture of the river depends on the mean
ing of the word visirnam; the simile is almost inseparable from
the image ; it enables the reader to .understand the implications
of the suggestion (vyanjana) that sparkles like drops of diamonds
in the rippling river.
Then follows the image of the woman in the ecstasy of a
passionate reunion, after the inevitable quarrel (kalahantarita) :

Tiropantostanitasubhagam pasyasi svaduyyasmat

Sabhrubhangam mukhamiva payo vetravatyascalormi |]24][

The river Vetravati rushes along swiftly driving her ripples

along the banks; one can almost hear the murmur of the waves
in the sonorous music of the words making towards the pebbled
shore. The ripples on the dimpling river look like the wrinkles
on the frowning face of a beautiful woman (sabhrubhangam muk
hamiva) ; amidst the ecstasy of the passionate love, her wrinkles
are as much an invitation as a reprobation stemming from the
feigned necessity of defending herself from the ravishing cares
ses of her brutish lover yearning for her lips. The rumbling
of the waves lapping on the shore sounds like the murmur of her
feigned disapproval reverberating in soft, little laughs (stanita
subhaga) as she gently repulses the amorous advances of her
boisterous lover. In this little word-picture the poet tries to
suggest the depths of desire and passionate love admidst the
ecstasy of reunion. The poet's imagination looks for a visual
analogy that through embellishment seeks to clarify something
seen and understood only imperfectly. The quality of the ima
gery depends upon the nature of the relations contained in the
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 INDIAN LITERATURE

analogy and the mood of the object to be described. The

imagery and the choice of words show the language of the poetry
in organic association with the image in an intimate fusion o
passionate love and poetic vision.
How revealing is the picture of the river Nirvindhya who
like a woman in love is prodigal enough to reveal her
beauty to her beloved in an amorous move to win him over :
abhisarika :

Vicikshova-stanita-vihagasreni-kancigunayah
Samsarpantyah skhalitasubhagam'darsitavartanaveh |]28||

There on the way lies the river Nirvindhya; she reels in pas
sion as she flows gently on, meandering through the field in
her beauty to fer beloved in an amorous move to win him over:
wandering curves (skhalitasubhagam samsarpantyah) ; the little
whirlpool in the eddying waters looks like the deep navel of the
passionate woman in a gay abandon (darsitavartanaveh) ; the
birds distraught by the sonorous rumbling of waves lappi ng on
the concave shores are all a-twitter; their trills sound like the
jingling chains on the girdle of the voluptuous woman wending
her way to the tryst (yihagasreni-kancigunayah). The diction in
this sloka with its unusual but suggestive epithets and metaphors
(image-cluster) is one of the finest examples of poetic excess
(afisayokti) ; it creates a fictive existence14, like that of a perfect
chrysolite with a beauty of its own. This imagery of wonderous
beauty, artfully constructed upon antithesis and parallelism,
stems from the passionate desire of the Yaksha in exile which
conjures the winding river as a magic mirror that reflects his
beloved wife in one of her amorous moods.
Kalidasa's art of personification, of endowing the elements
of nature with the breath of life, reaches the height of perfec
tion in the image of the river Sindhu. Here is the picture of the
proshita-patika, pining in sorrow for her beloved in sojourn, with
her hair bound in a single braid (ekaveni) :
Venibhuta-pratanu-salilasavatitasya Sindhuh
Panducchaya tataruhatarubhramsibhirjirnaparneh ||29||

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 kâlida's imagery in meghaduta

In summer the river Sindhu is lean and pale, like th'e unkempt
braid of the young wife in sorrowful reverie and full of gloomy
melancholy (venibhuta-pratanu salila). Her limpid water now
pale (panducchaya) with the dry, fallen leaves of the trees on
the bank, serves as the veil of sorrow. How revealing is this
little picture of a woman in sorrow brooding for her beloved
and how beautifully it is is developed with a few strokes of the
painter's brush! Never before had a river in summer been
painted in such colours to reflect the mood of a woman pining
for her lover. It is perfectly in accord with the picture of his
wife that the Yaksha loves to paint in Ins imagination.
Then follows a beautiful description of the woman crossed
in love—khandita—in the river Gambhira who, her native gravity
notwithstanding, tries to lure the unwilling lover:

Gambhirayah payasi saritascetasiva prasanne

Chayatmapi prakritisubhago lapsyate pravesam ||40]|

Gambhira's water is as limpid as her soul; her eyes gleam like

white lotus. Albeit unused to boldness, she rolls her eyes like
the flippant fish in an insidious dart glistening on the pellucid
surface of her unsullied water. She will unmask her beauty to
the cloud in order to entire the unwilling lover whose loom
ing shadow will lie upon her. The words chaya-atma, pravesam
lapsate make up the picture of the khandita woman whose lover
is unwilling to lie with her. Her blue waters are like her veil
and aslant the brook bend the hoary leaves of the cane trees
like the last vestiges of her falling garment which she lays bare
with a movement of shame:
Tasyah kincit karadhritamiva praptavanirasakham
Hritva nilam salilavasanam muktarcdhonitamvam ||41||

The image of the Ganges is that of a woman who has been

deceived in love: vipralabdha:
Gaurivaktrabhrukutiracanam ya vihasyeva phenaih
Sambhoh kesagrahanamkarodindulagnormihasta ||50||

Ganga feels cheated in her love; she ignores the gathering storm

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 INDIAN LITERATURE

of Gauri's jealous frown. With her wavy hands she plays with
the little moon locked in Shiva's matted hair and flows on with
her smiling, frothy waves in malicious mockery.
In another sloka, Ganga's cascade of water is compared to the
white garment of Alaka as she is being undressed by her beloved
Kailasa :

Tasyaotsange pranavinh iva srastaganagadukulam ||63||

According to Mallinatha. Alaka is the finest example of the wo

man with absolute control over her lover: svadhina-patika. As
desired by her, the mount Kailasa is trying his best to please her
in the game of love. He is her anukula-nayaka who plays at her
bidding.

VI

Kalidasa's images, although poetic, have the passionate in

tensity of dramatic images and serve as the bridge by which the
indispensable collaboration between the poet and the reader
(.samajika) is effected. The images sometimes are erotic but
never before had sensuality attained such magnificence, never
so arrogated to itself the privileges of a spatial universe in the
quest of the absolute. No other poem gives more the impres
sion of a constant sublimation, an inevitable transfer of the dee
per life of the senses to a mythical and superhuman plane. Cos
mic images abound in it, effortlessly studding the terrestrial
universe and conferring upon it celestial dimensions and pres
tige. These images have an immense diversity of forms, as
variable as the clouds, as colourful as the rainbow and as ex
quisite as the radiance of the jewels; they have that plastic
phantasy of the world of dreams fragrant with the perfume of
the flowers that bloom in the rains. They transcend the fron
tiers of reality which seems to nourish them; the simmering
beauty of the metaphors makes the slokas sparkle like watered
silk. They sail in a prodigious effulgence and clouds of golden
dust. Adoration and grief and the joyous ecstasy of impatient
love produce these extraordinary images, the cosmic brilliance

M6

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 kalidasa's imagery in meghaduta

of which fills us with amazement. Each shines with a lustre of

its own, dazzles with its own radiance, despite the radical un
reality which strikes us at first sight in them. The magic of his
poetic expression creates a poetic world which transcends ordi
nary reality and becomes objects of contemplation and aesthetic
satisfaction. It gives us a new and even more exalting vision of
life which has meaning for us in so far as any given poem by
virtue of its image-pattern has correspondence with the pattern
of real world. These images sublimate emotion, create the
illusion that gives the words their strange power to cast a spell
over us in the suspension of disbelief. Everything in the
Meghaduta is illusory and therefore everything is real.
Kalidasa's genius lies in his ability to combine sublimity
with grace, the rhythm's power of music with the language's
power of expression, the boldness of description with the magni
ficence of sensuous colour in a degree of perfection never before
or afterwards surpassed or even equalled in poetic literature.
His art lies in his self-imposed restraint, in the economy of the
means he employs. There is no excess, no undisciplined excite
ment but a sustained effort to keep the expression within bounds.
Here is the triumph of intellect over emotion, of balance and
moderation. The most perfect poet is one who seems most
at ease within the confines of restraint; the purest, he who can
be the most moving in the most sober language. Kalidasa is
both. His is a supreme art, a perfection that cannot be repea
ted. Everything in this poem is in the undefined region of a
melodious dreamland, an idealised world embracing nature and
humanity. Clouds sail over this sylvan world on the wings of
desire and the symphony of love and sorrow makes shadows
dance to the strains of an invisible but sonorous orchestra. The
superb balance of the slokas, the sublimity of the imagery and
the seductive charm of their melody seem to us more limpid
and more beautiful than those mountain-lakes where the heavens
are mirrored.

117

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 Indian literature

REFERENCES

1. Robert Browning, Paracelus, Pt. II

2. T.S. Eliot, Selected Prose (Penguin), p. 48.
3. Shakespeare, Love's iMbour's Lost, V. ii. 407
4. T.S. Eliot, op. cit., p. 49.
5. T.S. Eliot, op. cit., p. 57.
6. B. Croce, European Literature in the Nineteenth Century, p. 52.
7. D.G.James, Scepticism and Poetry (1937), p. 73.
8. S.K. De, Sanskrit Poetics as a Study of Aesthetic, Oxford, 1903.
9. Shakespeare, As You Like It, II. i. 16-17.
10. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, V. i. 14.
11. Ibid, V. i. 7.
12. M. M. Williams, English-Sanskrit Dictionary
13. Frazer, The Golden Bough, chs. 11-12.
14. Ramaranjan Mukherji, Imagery in Poetry (1972), p. 17.

HS

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