Malavika smiles a la Mona Lisa - "Malavikagnimitram"

Malavika smiles a la Mona Lisa   - ‘Malavikagnimitram’                                


 

        

King Agnimitra had an irresistible desire for Malavika.  Malavika was a maid in the royal palace.  Agnimitra’s obsession for the most beautiful Malavika was an open secret among others including his Queen Dharini.  Malavika participated in a song and dance contest to win the laurel.  When Malavika was performing the dance Agnimitra wanted to see a disarming smile on the face of Malavika - that beautiful smile of Mona Lisa – in the modern world there is no better smile epitomizing than that of Mona Lisa.   Agnimitra wanted that smile to appear on Malavika’s moon face.  The comedian of the royal chamber started with many jokes to evoke a laugh in the royal chamber and finally succeeded that Malavika too smiled at the end.  Agnimitra by sighting Malavika’s smile was overwhelmed with passion and had a love crush on Malavika.

The epic romantic love story by Kalidasa in Sanskrit language about Agnimitra’s love for Malavika is famous.   The forbidden love, an obsession of a King for a court dancer.

Malavikagnimitram is the love story of King Agnimitra and the court dancer Malavika. The tale unfolds through humorous palace interludes, vivid descriptions of fine arts and the cunning machinations of court players. Even in this early work, Kalidasa’s characteristic penchant for romance, art and natural beauty is evident at every delightful turn of the plot. He transforms simple tale of forbidden love into an engrossing court drama filled with beauty, humor and wit.

Malavikagnimitram

 

The first play composed by the great poet Kalidasa is Malavikagnimitram. Often it is called Kalidasa Malavikagnimitram, as an honor to Kalidasa.  This beautiful play of intrigue grips its readers and keeps them glued till the very end.  The plot of the play is cleverly constructed and it revolves around the King's love interest who is a maid in the royal palace.   The construction of love plots and many incidents that make the story move further are commendable and are beautifully described, without deviating from the central theme.    To know more about this beautiful play called Malavikagnimitram, continue to read this insightful blog post on it.

SYNOPSIS

The plot is a comedy that involves romantic relationships between a King and a humble maid.   It is the tale of King Agnimitra's love for Malavika, who is an unheard of maid in the royal palace.   It is said that this lady was proficient in dance and music.   The way situations crop up between them and the way they handle it amidst confusion and jealousy is commendable.   There are many scenes of light hearted comedy, confusion and confrontation that make Malavikagnimitram one of the finest works of Kalidasa.

Thoroughly enjoyable, this play is the first work of Kalidasa.  The skill with which he employs comedy, confusion and romance in a potpourri of romantic drama is truly the work of a genius.   The smooth flow of the events adds to the continuity of the play.   Though the play lapses in some aspect, yet on the whole, it bears the trademark of the workmanship of Kalidasa.   Agnimitra, though passionate is a bit passive and uses the help of his minister to help him win over Malavika and make her his queen.   This play is a must read if you want to enjoy the purity of literature. The play is basically divided into 5 main acts.

Act I:   In the first act two scholars, Ganadas and Hardatt, from the kingdom are shown fighting amongst each other to settle the question of who is more knowledgeable in the field of dance and drama.   To solve this conflict King Agnimitra summons the chambermaid Malavika.   It is made obvious that the king has some desires for her but he did not want to make them public as yet as he is already married to Queen Dharini.   Malavika was a student of Guru Ganadas, one of the best if you will.   He thought of using her in case of any competition.   This little secret was known to Agnimitra’s childhood friend and the court entertainer Gautam.   Gautam also knew about King’s love interest for Malavika.   It was in fact Gautam who sets up a competition between the two gurus so that he gets to see the much talked about Malavika finally.   Side by side, a battle is planned against the King of Vidarbha.   King’s soldiers had captured his cousin Madhavsen.   Madhavsen’s sister escaped the capture.   Kanchuki takes care of the preparations of the dance competition while Minister Amatya Vahtak prepares for the military attack.   The king insists that Madhavsen’s sister, Parivrajika Kaushiki, should be present during the dance competition as an adjudicator and her decision will be the final decision.

Act II: Guatam’s plan turns out to be successful and Guru Ganadas chooses Malavika to represent him in the dance competition.  She performs a graceful and charming Chhalik playact on a quartet written by Sharmishtha.   She looks so beautiful while dancing that the King cannot take his eyes off her.   Even her voice enamors him.   She sings about a beloved craving for her lover.   The King starts feeling like she is calling out to him and he loses himself into her song and dance.   When she finishes, Gautam sees on King’s face that he was dying to see Malavika smiling.    Guatam makes a joke in the court and everyone starts to laugh and Malavika also smiles for a while before leaving.  This makes the king very happy.   He loses all interest in the competition now.   He does not really want to see the other dancers.   Just when the king thought that he could not take any of this dance competition and cannot bear to see anyone else sing or dance, Vaitalik arrives. He announces the commencement of the lunch.

Act III: Queen Kaushiki’s maids Samahitika and Madhukarika discusses the dance performance of Malavika and comes to a mutual consensus that she is going to win the competition hands down.   They are also aware of King’s feelings for her, so is everyone else in the kingdom.   Now Malavika and Bakulavalika is sent to stand underneath the Asjpka tree by the Chief Queen Dharini to perform Dohada. Dohada was a ceremony of dancing which has the capacity of making the buds flower soon.  The Queen does not take part in the ceremony herself as her feet were hurting after a fall from the swing but she promises Malavika that if the tree blossoms then she will grant Malavika a wish of hers.   At this time queen Iravati invites the King to come into the pleasure garden and spend some time with her.   But the King was worried that he might not be able to be himself in front of his Queens now that he had this burning desire for Malavika.  But Gautam suggested him not to leave the side of his Queens and continue being the same with them.   There comes a point where the King, Gautam, Iravati, Bakulvalika and Malavika all come face to face in the pleasure garden.

Act IV:   Queen Dharini gets to know about the King’s feeling for Malavika.   She sends guards to capture Malavika and Bakulavalika and imprison them in the dungeons.  It was ordered to not set them free unless someone produces the seal of her ring Nagmudrika, which would mean that it’s an order by her. It was queen Iravati and her maid Nipinika who informs the chief Queen about the feelings of the King for Malavika.  The King decides to meet the Queen in her chambers where she was getting her feet nursed and burning with anger.   Gautam also assures the King that he will think of a clever idea and help in getting Malavika out of the prison.   He fakes a snake bite and goes to the royal physician. There is chaos and disorder everywhere in the palace and it is spread out that the physician is asking for a talisman with an image of the snake on it to perform a medicinal ritual on Gautam to take the poison out of his body and save his life.   In the disarray, Dharini gives away her ring without making sure where it is going and then the ring is shown to the keepers of the dungeons. Malavika is released.

Act V:   The Ashoka tree is in full bloom after five days and the chief queen is now obliged to fulfill one wish of Malavika.   In the meanwhile, the king of Vidarbha had been defeated and Madhavsen is set free.   He comes back to the kingdom and reveals that Malavika is his sister who has been in hiding all this while.   This makes the chief Queen happy and knowing that her husband has fallen in love, she makes Malavika as one of his Queens.   As Malavika is of royal blood it seemed that now nobody has any problem to accept her as Queen.  King Agnimitra thus won Malavika’s hand in blissful matrimony.

Kalidasa has written plays like Vikramorvashiyam and Abhinjanashankuntalam after Malavikagnimitram.  His  works have been considered in the highest echelons of Sanskrit literature.

The other works of Kalidasa are –

Poem

·         Raghuvamsha

·         Kumarasambhava

·         Ritusamhara

Lyric

·         Meghduta

The best poem of Kalidasa according to me is as given below  -

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of achievement
Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

A brief biography of Kalidasa

 

Kavikulaguru Kalidasa is India’s National Poet.

Kalidasa,  (flourished 5th century ce, India), Sanskrit poet and dramatist, probably the greatest Indian writer of any epoch. The six works identified as genuine are the dramas Abhijnanashakuntala (“The Recognition of Shakuntala”), Vikramorvashi (“Urvashi Won by Valour”), and Malavikagnimitra (“Malavika and Agnimitra”); the epic poems Raghuvamsha (“Dynasty of Raghu”) and Kumarasambhava (“Birth of the War God”); and the lyric “Meghaduta” (“Cloud Messenger”).

As with most classical Indian authors, little is known about Kalidasa’s person or his historical relationships. His poems suggest but nowhere declare that he was a Brahman (priest), liberal yet committed to the orthodox Hindu worldview. His name, literally “servant of Kali,” presumes that he was a Shaivite (follower of the god Shiva, whose consort was Kali), though occasionally he eulogizes other gods, notably Vishnu.

A Sinhalese tradition says that he died on the island of Sri Lanka during the reign of Kumaradasa, who ascended the throne in 517. A more persistent legend makes Kalidasa one of the “nine gems” at the court of the fabulous king Vikramaditya of Ujjain. Unfortunately, there are several known Vikramadityas (Sun of Valour—a common royal appellation); likewise, the nine distinguished courtiers could not have been contemporaries. It is certain only that the poet lived sometime between the reign of Agnimitra, the second Shunga king (c. 170 bce) and the hero of one of his dramas, and the Aihole inscription of 634 ce, which lauds Kalidasa. He is apparently imitated, though not named, in the Mandasor inscription of 473. No single hypothesis accounts for all the discordant information and conjecture surrounding this date.

An opinion accepted by many—but not all—scholars is that Kalidasa should be associated with Chandra Gupta II (reigned c. 380–c. 415). The most convincing but most conjectural rationale for relating Kalidasa to the brilliant Gupta dynasty is simply the character of his work, which appears as both the perfect reflection and the most thorough statement of the cultural values of that serene and sophisticated aristocracy.

Tradition has associated many works with the poet; criticism identifies six as genuine and one more as likely (“Ritusamhara,” the “Garland of the Seasons,” perhaps a youthful work). Attempts to trace Kalidasa’s poetic and intellectual development through these works are frustrated by the impersonality that is characteristic of classical Sanskrit literature. His works are judged by the Indian tradition as realizations of literary qualities inherent in the Sanskrit language and its supporting culture. Kalidasa has become the archetype for Sanskrit literary composition.

In drama, his Abhijnanashakuntala is the most famous and is usually judged the best Indian literary effort of any period. Taken from an epic legend, the work tells of the seduction of the nymph Shakuntala by King Dushyanta, his rejection of the girl and his child, and their subsequent reunion in heaven. The epic myth is important because of the child, for he is Bharata, eponymous ancestor of the Indian nation (Bharatavarsha, “Subcontinent of Bharata”). Kalidasa remakes the story into a love idyll whose characters represent a pristine aristocratic ideal: the girl, sentimental, selfless, alive to little but the delicacies of nature, and the king, first servant of the dharma (religious and social law and duties), protector of the social order, resolute hero, yet tender and suffering agonies over his lost love. The plot and characters are made believable by a change Kalidasa has wrought in the story: Dushyanta is not responsible for the lovers’ separation; he acts only under a delusion caused by a sage’s curse. As in all of Kalidasa’s works, the beauty of nature is depicted with a precise elegance of metaphor that would be difficult to match in any of the world’s literature.

The second drama, Vikramorvashi (possibly a pun on Vikramaditya), tells a legend as old as the Vedas (earliest Hindu scriptures), though very differently. Its theme is the love of a mortal for a divine maiden; it is well known for the “mad scene” (Act IV) in which the king, grief-stricken, wanders through a lovely forest apostrophizing various flowers and trees as though they were his love. The scene was intended in part to be sung or danced.

The third of Kalidasa’s dramas, Malavikagnimitra, is of a different stamp—a harem intrigue, comical and playful, but not less accomplished for lacking any high purpose. The play (unique in this respect) contains datable references, the historicity of which have been much discussed.

Kalidasa’s efforts in kaavya (strophic poetry) are of uniform quality and show two different subtypes, epic and lyric. Examples of the epic are the two long poems Raghuvamsha and Kumarasambhava. The first recounts the legends of the hero Rama’s forebears and descendants; the second tells the picaresque story of Shiva’s seduction by his consort Parvati, the conflagration of Kama (the god of desire), and the birth of Kumara (Skanda), Shiva’s son. These stories are mere pretext for the poet to enchain stanzas, each metrically and grammatically complete, redounding with complex and reposeful imagery. Kalidasa’s mastery of Sanskrit as a poetic medium is nowhere more marked.

A lyric poem, the “Meghaduta,” contains, interspersed in a message from a lover to his absent beloved, an extraordinary series of unexcelled and knowledgeable vignettes, describing the mountains, rivers, and forests of northern India.

            

The society reflected in Kalidasa’s work is that of a courtly aristocracy sure of its dignity and power. Kalidasa has perhaps done more than any other writer to wed the older, Brahmanic religious tradition, particularly its ritual concern with Sanskrit, to the needs of a new and brilliant secular Hinduism. The fusion, which epitomizes the renaissance of the Gupta period, did not, however, survive its fragile social base; with the disorders following the collapse of the Gupta Empire, Kalidasa became a memory of perfection that neither Sanskrit nor the Indian aristocracy would know again.

       

Kalidas in his teens appeared to be a fool.  There is a story suggesting Kalidasa’s foolhardiness. One really wonders how a person considered to be a fool can write inter woven with pearls of wisdom the Sanskrit epics bestowed in his name.

Kalidasa, the greatest poet of classical Sanskrit, is known only through his writings. Apart from this, there are no clues to his personal life. Even the names of his parents are not known, nor his place of birth. The mystery surrounding him has given rise to incredible legends about him which are current even today. Our script is based on one of these legends. Kalidasa is the author of several great Sanskrit poetical works (or Mahakavyas) and plays for which he is justly famous - Raghuvamsha, Kumarasambhava, Meghaduta, Ritusamhara, Abhijana Shakuntala, Vikramorvashiya and Malavika-Agnimitra. These reveal that Kalidasa was a lover of nature and his descriptions suggest that he must have travelled widely. His poetry has the freshness and beauty of a mountains stream. He portrays women with tenderness. He exhibits a special love for Ujjayini in his writings and he probably knew it well. Scholars are agreed that though all Kalidasa's works have the stamp of genius, his play Abhijana Shakuntala must be rated as his greatest work. Kalidasa today is regarded as one of the immortals of world literature taking his place beside Shakespeare and Goethe.

It was my intent to write a Blog about a Sanskrit scholar whose imagination with serene beauty, art and aristocracy captivated my heart and soul.