पृष्ठम्:Sanskrit Literature.djvu/१२३

THE KUMĀRASAMBHAVA 91 Kālidāsa to draw the wonderful picture of Spring's advent and the revival of the youth and life of the world. There is a parallel too for Rati's despair ¹; when Vālin falls Tārā addresses him with words not less sincere because they bear the stamp of the classic style: 'Why dost thus speak no more to thy beloved? Arise and share this fair couch with me; the best of men lie not, as thou, on the ground. Too dear dost thou hold, o lord, the earth even in death, since me thou dost leave alone and her hast clasped in thine embrace. Ended our days of joy together in the fair forest; sunken am I in a deep sea of sorrow, without joy, without sustenance, since thus hast departed. Hard my heart that it can see thee stretched on the ground and yet not break from sorrow. Hints too for the demon Tāraka are clearly taken from the description of Rāvaņa in the Rāmāyaṇa. There are doubtless reminders here and there of Açvaghoşa, as in the description of the actions of the women of the city on the advent of Çiva and Parvati, which has a prototype in the description in the Buddhacarita³ of the entrance of the prince, and which is taken up again in the description in the Raghuvança of the entry of Aja and Indumati. The problem why the poem was never finished by its author remains insoluble. The loss of the last pages of a solitary manu- script may be the explanation, but it is far more likely that the poet, deterred either by contemporary criticism of his treatment of the divine pair, or by the feeling that the legend of the birth with its strangeness and miracles was not a true theme for poetry, abandoned the purpose and left his work unfinished. It can hardly be claimed that death intervened, for there can be no doubt that the Raghuvança is a later work. This shows itself both in the graver tone, in the references to the Yoga philosophy and the less personal conception of the universe as compared with the magnification of Çiva in the Kumarasambhava, and in the growing pedantry seen in the use of similes derived from grammar, of which we have only modest suggestions in the Kumarasambhava. Thus Rāma's army follows him to serve ¹ iv. 23; cf. vi. 111 (of Rāvana). 2 Cf. also Rām. vi. 124. 45 with xiii. 36. 4 vii. 56-69. 6 vii. 5-16. 7 ii. 27; vii. 69; Raghuvança, xii. 58; xi. 56; i. 1; xv. 7, 9. $ Cf. Walter, Indica, iii. 11 ff. 5 ii. 13-24.