i68

THE AR VANS IN ANCIENT INDIA.

Later

Sanskrit

epics.

Raghu-

vansa.

Kumara- sambhava

.

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana, however overladenwith fable, form the chronicles of the kings of the Middle Landof the Ganges , their family feuds, and their national enter-prises. In the later Sanskrit epics, the legendary element ismore and more overpowered by the mythological. Amongthem the Raghu-vansa and the Kumara-sambhava , bothassigned to Kalidasa , take the first rank. The Raghu-vansacelebrates the Solar line of Raghu, King of Ajodhya; moreparticularly the ancestry and the life of his descendant Rama.The Kumara-sambhava recounts the birth of the War-god. 1It is still more didactic and allegorical, abounding in sentimentand in feats of prosody. But it contains passages of exquisitebeauty of style and elevation of thought. From the astrologicaldata which these two poems furnish, Jacobi infers that theycannot have been composed before 350 a.d.

Kalidasa . The name of Kalidasa has come down, not only as thecomposer of these two later epics, but as the father of theSanskrit drama. According to Hindu tradition, he was oneof the ‘ Nine Gems ’ or distinguished men at the court ofVikramaditya. This prince is popularly identified with theKing of Ujjain who gave his name to the Samvat era,commencing in the year 57 b.c. But, as Holtzmann pointsout, it may be almost as dangerous to infer from this latterKing Vik- circumstance that Vikramaditya lived in 57 b.c., as to placeramaditya. j u ]j us Cge Sar the fi rs t y ear 0 f the so-called Julian Calendar ,namely, 47 r 3 b.c. Several Vikramadityas figure in Indian history. Indeed, the name is merely a title, ‘ A very Sun inProwess,’ which has been borne by victorious monarchs ofmany of the Indian dynasties. The date of Vikramaditya hasbeen variously assigned from 57 b.c. to 1050 a.d.; and the55oa.d.(?) works of the poets and philosophers who formed the ‘NineGems ’ of his court, appear from internal evidence to havebeen composed at intervals during that long period. TheVikramaditya under whom Kalidasa and the ‘Nine Gems’are traditionally said to have flourished, ruled over Malwaprobably about 500 to 550 a.d.

Age of the In India , as in Greece and Rome, scenic representationsdrain^ nt seem *-° h ave taken their rise in the rude pantomime of a veryearly time, possibly as far back as the Vedic ritual; and the

1 Translated into spirited English verse by Mr. Ralph T. H. Griffith,M.A., who is also the author of a charming collection of ‘Idylls from theSanskrit, ’ based on the Mahabharata , Ramayana, Raghu-vansa, and Kali­ dasa ’s Seasons.