हंससंदेशः /24
This page has not been fully proofread.
22
The choice of a swan in the poem is quite appropriate.
According to the Ramayana, Rama starts on his expedi-
tion against Lanka, only after the advent of the Sarat.
In this season the swans are believed to come down into
the plains from the Manasa lake in the Himalayas, and
move to the extreme south of the land.
In order that a poet may be rightly judged, one has
first to find out what the Sanskrit Rhetoricians aptly call
Kavi hridaya (the poet's mind), or in other words, the
motive of the poem. This Kavi-hridaya is at times easy
of determination by means of a careful study of the
character of the hero of the poem. For his Meghasandesa
Kalidasa selected a hero of the Dhiralalita type in the
banished Yaksha (निश्चिन्तो धीरललितः कलासक्तः सुस्वी मृदु:). In our
mythology the Yakshas are pictured to be a type of beings
between the human and the divine. They are more divine
than human. They are fabulously rich and
subjects of King Kubera, the Lord of Treasure-Troves.
They have infinite facilities and an inherent capacity to
enjoy pleasure in all its aspects. Wealth, wine and
women are the be-all and end-all of their existence. To
suit the experiences of a hero of that type, Kalidasa has
had to build up his poem on a substratum of the sensuous,
but with a happy blending of the supersensuous here and
there, because of the partial divinity also of the hero. The
lines like
मध्येश्यामः स्तनइव भुवः शेषविस्तारपाण्डुः,
or 'सभ्रूभङ्गं मुखमिव पयो वेलवत्याश्चलोर्मि,
or लोलापाङ्गैर्यदि न रमसे लोचनैर्वञ्चितोसि,
are the
The choice of a swan in the poem is quite appropriate.
According to the Ramayana, Rama starts on his expedi-
tion against Lanka, only after the advent of the Sarat.
In this season the swans are believed to come down into
the plains from the Manasa lake in the Himalayas, and
move to the extreme south of the land.
In order that a poet may be rightly judged, one has
first to find out what the Sanskrit Rhetoricians aptly call
Kavi hridaya (the poet's mind), or in other words, the
motive of the poem. This Kavi-hridaya is at times easy
of determination by means of a careful study of the
character of the hero of the poem. For his Meghasandesa
Kalidasa selected a hero of the Dhiralalita type in the
banished Yaksha (निश्चिन्तो धीरललितः कलासक्तः सुस्वी मृदु:). In our
mythology the Yakshas are pictured to be a type of beings
between the human and the divine. They are more divine
than human. They are fabulously rich and
subjects of King Kubera, the Lord of Treasure-Troves.
They have infinite facilities and an inherent capacity to
enjoy pleasure in all its aspects. Wealth, wine and
women are the be-all and end-all of their existence. To
suit the experiences of a hero of that type, Kalidasa has
had to build up his poem on a substratum of the sensuous,
but with a happy blending of the supersensuous here and
there, because of the partial divinity also of the hero. The
lines like
मध्येश्यामः स्तनइव भुवः शेषविस्तारपाण्डुः,
or 'सभ्रूभङ्गं मुखमिव पयो वेलवत्याश्चलोर्मि,
or लोलापाङ्गैर्यदि न रमसे लोचनैर्वञ्चितोसि,
are the