Kalidasa - A Counter Perspective

Kalidasa: A Counter Perspective tries to show the limitations, obligations and compulsions of court poetry while trying to explore the aristocratic as well as hedonistic undercurrent flowing through the works of Kälidāsa. It ventures to make a critique of Kālidāsa's literary commitments and also tries to tackle several other problems : was Indian society totally free from social maladies like Indigence and miseries of day-to-day life in times of Kälidāsa? Could the poet have avoided demeaning voluptuous details in his works? Do luxurious descriptions of invaluable gems and ornaments accompanied with splendid details of riches create any distaste? Were the ideals of morality lower as compared to the old social order? Does this poetry swim in sensuous weakness and dissoluteness?

Dr. Naveen Kumar Jha (b. 1967) was mostly educated in Patna University and moved to Delhi University in 1989 for hie master's and Ph.D. degrees. He did hid research in Nyaya Darśana at Delhi University under the apt supervision of Prof. Vachaspati Upadhyaya, HOD, Deptt. of Sanskrit. He rendered his services as an ad-hoc lecturer in Satyawati Co-ed College and Sri Venkatesvara College (1993-1996) affiliated to Delhi University. Presently he is working as a permanent faculty at Govt. P.G. College, Pratapgarh, Rajasthan.

The chief aim of literature is to address and underline the maladies of society and to suggest remedies for their redressal as well for generations to come. The idea behind writing this tract has been to identify and examine on logical bases the humanitarian elements, the elements relating inequalities and subjugations from which the large masses suffer and also to examine the extent to which Kālidāsa, the greatest among Sanskrit writers, and his spirit lack them. Kālidasa's world-wide acceptance is beyond doubt, still there are flaws that concern a reasoned and objective reader very much.

In the year 1993, when I was in the final stage of my Ph. D. thesis submission, a seminar on the topic "Indian Value System" was going to be organized by the Deptt. of Sanskrit, University of Delhi, under the headship of my rev. Guruji Prof. Vachaspati Upadhyaya. Prof. Namwar Singh, the world-renowned Hindi critic and the doyen of Indian literature, who at that time resided in the staff quarters of J. N. U new campus, had been invited as the chief guest and key-speaker for the occasion. Since J. N. U and Delhi University are located at two different ends of Delhi, I had been assigned the duty of receiving Prof. Singh from his residence in new campus by Guruji. I was highly excited at the moment as I had been provided with the rare opportunity to be with the great literatteur whom I greatly revered due to his towering per-sonality from my schooldays. His text 'Dūsarī Paramparā ki khoj' made me a great admirer of his style and erudite scholarship.

**Contents and Sample Pages**