87 THE MEGHADŪTA mentaries, including that of Vallabhadeva,' who gives 111 verses, of Dakṣiṇāvartanātha (c. 1200), who has 110, and of Mallinātha,² who has 118. Inevitably many other lyric poems were ascribed to Kālidāsa, including two of some merit, the Ghaṭakarpara and the Çrīgāra- tilaka, but there is no real probability of proving them his. 6. The Kumarasambhava High as Indian opinion ranks the Meghaduta, which won also the commendation of Goethe,³ to modern taste the Kumāra- sambhava appeals more deeply by reason of its richer variety, the brilliance of its fancy, and the greater warmth of its feeling. The Meghaduta has, with reason, been ascribed the merit of approaching more closely than any other Indian poem to the rank of an elegy; the Kumarasambhava varies from the loveliness of the spring and the delights of married love to the utter desolation induced by the death of the beloved.. The subject is unquestionably a daring one, the events which bring about the marriage of the highest god Çiva to Uma and the birth of Skanda, the war god, and Anandavardhana5 tells us that there were critics who deemed it wrong to depict the amour of two deities. Still less permissible does the subject naturally appear to modern taste, unless we realize that as in the Meghadüūta we must see the poet's power of suggestion; the wedlock of Çiva and Umā is no mere sport, no episode of light love such as that of Zeus with Danae or many another. From this union springs a power destined to perform the slaying of the demon Taraka, who menaces the world with destruction; moreover, their nup- tials and their love serve as the prototype for human marriage and human love, and sanctify with divine precedent the forces which make the home and carry on the race of men. ¹ Hultzsch places him in the 10th cent., but see Pathak's ed., pp. xiv ff. He knew Bilhana and Hemacandra, but is cited in 1140 A. D. > This famous commentator, who also explained the epics of Kalidāsa, Bhatti, and Māgha, and Vidyādhara's Ekāvali (see ed., pp. xxiv ff.) A comm. on the Nalodaya is given, Madras Catal., xx. 7923. 8 Cf. von Schroeder, Indiens Lit. und Cultur, p. 548.
- Ed. NSP. 1906; 1-viii, TSS. 1913-14; i-vii, trans. R. H. Griffith, London,
1879- 5 iii. 6, p. 137. Mammața disagrees. Bhāravi, c. 1400.
