KALIDASA'S STYLE AND METRE 107
credit whatever to the suggestion that v. 14 of the Meghaduta is an attempt obliquely to praise Nicula and damn DignSga. Of the former we know nothing, and it was doubtless the later love for Clesas which bade men find them in Kalidasa, where not one elaborate case even can be proved to exist. 1
Kalidasa' s metrical skill is undoubted. In the Rtnsamhara he used normally the Indravajra and Varicastha types, with Vasan- tatilaka and MalinI; one stanza only in Cardulavikrldita occurs. The Meghaduta shows the more elaborate Mandakranta used without variation ; a few slight roughnesses as regards caesura may be adduced as proof of the relatively early date of the poem, but the evidence is too slight to weigh seriously in itself. In the Kumar asambhava we find the normal rule that the canto is written in a single metre with change, as the writers on poetics require, at the close. Thus i, iii, and vii are written in the Indra- vajra; ii and vi in the Cloka, iv in the Vaitallya, and v in the Varicastha, while viii is in the Rathoddhata. The closing changes are furnished by Puspitagra, MalinI, and Vasantatilaka. The Raghuvahga follows on the whole this principle, but exhibits greater variety, suggesting later date. The Indravajra type serves for ii, v-vii, xiii, xiv, xvi, and xviii ; the Cloka for i, iv, x, xii, xv, and xvii ; the Vaitallya for viii, and the Rathoddhata for xi and xix. Canto ix is orthodox up to v. 54, being in Drutavilambita, then it deliberately displays the poet's skill in new metres, each with a verse or so, Aupacchandasika, Puspi- tagra, Praharsini, Mafijubhasinl, Mattamayura, Vasantatilaka, which is also used for 11 verses in v, Vaitallya, CalinI, and Svagata. There occur also odd verses in Totaka, Mandakranta, Mahamalika, and iii is written in Varicastha, with a concluding ' verse in Harinl. There are thus nineteen metres in all to eight in the earlier epic. Detailed efforts to find some sign of develop- ment in any of the metres in respect of caesuras &c. have failed to yield any results worthy of credence. 2
In the Cloka the rules had already been established by epic
1 In Meghaduta 10 dfdbatidha may have a double sense ; 28 rasa; Kumdrasam- bhava, viii. 22 ; Raghuvahga, xi. 20. But in v. 14 Nicula is to be a poet friend, else- where utterly unknown.
a Huth, Die Zeit des Kalidasa (1890), App. ; Hillebrandt, Kalidasa, p. 157. Cf. SIF1. VIII. u. 40 ff.
