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Updated: June 8, 2025
On the arch beneath this group are inscribed these lines by Kalidasa: "The moon sinks yonder in the west, while in the east the glorious sun behind the herald dawn appears. Thus rise and set in constant change those shining orbs and regulate the very life of this our world."
Looking in questioning banter at Claude Leslie, Oswald says: "It has been rumored that in the great republic beyond the Atlantic they sometimes do a little 'railroading." Tippoo Kalidasa is an interesting Hindu. With self-inflicted cognomen and many eccentric notions about all sorts of subjects, Tippoo can talk well and to the point.
You must remember that downward trend in the Great Cycle; that make each succeeding period in Sanskrit literature a descent from the heights of esotericism towards the personal plane. That is what brings Kalidasa on to a level with Keats.
It was only a late posterity that perceived the meaning of those expeditions to England and Germany, so inconsiderate in a military point of view, and so barren of immediate result.... That there is a bridge connecting the past glory of Hellas and Rome with the prouder fabric of modern history; that western Europe is Romanic, and Germanic Europe classic; that the names of Themistocles and Scipio have to us a very different sound from those of Asoka and Salmanassar; that Homer and Sophocles are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa, attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own garden, all this is the work of Cæsar."
Hence, if a man has been superior to his own age, he would also have been superior to any other; provided that, in that age, by some rare and happy chance, a few just men, capable of judging in the sphere of his achievements, had been born at the same time with him; just as when, according to a beautiful Indian myth, Vischnu becomes incarnate as a hero, so, too, Brahma at the same time appears as the singer of his deeds; and hence Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are incarnations of Brahma.
Such are the "Meghaduta" and the "Ritusanhara" of Kalidasa, the "Madhava and Radha" of Jayadeva, and especially the "Gita-Govinda" of the same poet, or the adventures of Krishna as a shepherd, a poem in which the soft languors of love are depicted in enchanting colors, and which is adorned with all the magnificence of language and sentiment.
In all emergencies of thought or feeling, Tippoo Kalidasa soulfully repeats the formula: "I take refuge in Buddha!" Though Oswald's mind is not excessively tinged with the speculative or ethical, he finds much of interest in the talk of this unique guide.
But you can derive no such negativing certainty, in India, from the fact that Vikramaditya and Ujjain and Kalidasa may never have been mentioned together, not associated with the era of 57 B.C., in any extant writing known to the west that comes from before several centuries later.
Very possibly the Nine Gems of Literature and Kalidasa and The Ring of Sakoontala belong to this reign really. At any rate it was a wonderful time. Fa-hien, the Chinese Buddhist traveler, obligingly visited India during its process, and left a picture of conditions. Personal liberty, says Mrs. Steel, was the keynote feature.
The former appears to have been a native of Conjevaram and a contemporary of Kâlidâsa. Diṅnâga spent much time in Nâlanda, and though the Sanskrit originals of his works are lost the Tibetan translations are preserved. The Buddhist schools of logic continued for many centuries. One flourished in Kashmir and another, founded by Candragomin, in Bengal.
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