TIME OF KALIDASA

By

Anand M. Sharan

Professor

Faculty of Engineering

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St. John’s, Canada

E-Mail: asharan@engr.mun.ca

Key Words: Greek Astronomy , Vedanga Jyotisa , Siddhantic Astronomy , Kalidasa , Vikram Era , King Vikramaditya

ABSTRACT

The present work deals with the determination of the time of Kalidasa which has been one of the unsolved problems of Ancient India . This research looks at the works of Kalidasa , and his knowledge of Greek astronomy . Based on the works of other historians and astronomers , it is concluded that Kalidasa was in the court of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya as one of the nine gems . This was in the fourth and fifth century AD .

DIFFERING DATES ON THE TIME OF KALIDASA BY VARIOUS HISTORIANS

India has produced one of the greatest poets and dramatists of the world - Kalidasa , but it is strange that his time is still unknown . Sethna¹³ in his book entitled , " Problems of Ancient India " , lists the time of Kalidasa as one of the 11 unsolved problems of Ancient India . This has inspired the author to take up this task of finding out the actual time of the poet Kalidasa . His time has varied , depending upon different historians , between the first century BC to fifth century AD . His time is intertwined with the fable of ( a ) Vikramaditya , and ( b ) beginning of the Vikrama era .

Why has there been such a confusion about his time? This , as the author believes , is due to the fact that Kalidasa wrote information about the Vikramaditya's court in Ujjayini. The claim pointing to his existence around 1st century BC arises due to his play on the Shunga king Agnimitra who belonged to that period . Those who believe this, think that it is very unlikely that he ( Kalidasa ) would have made this obscure king the hero of his play unless he ( Kalidasa ) belonged to that period. They do not realize that the later Sungas ruled from Bhilsa in eastern Malwa , and that Kalidasa also lived in western Malwa . Some other details in this respect are also provided later on in this work . The Vikrama calendar also begins with 58-57 BC. However, not much is known about Kalidasa's personal life and background, though there are several legends and tales about his life.

Three famous plays attributed to Kalidasa are Malavikaagnimitra (Malavikaa and Agnimitra), Vikramorvashiiya(Pertaining to Vikrama and Urvashi) and Abhigyaanashaakuntala (The Recognition of Sakuntala). The last work is his most famous play .

Kalidasa is also known for his famous poems. His two famous epic poems are Kumaarasambhava and Raghuvamsha (The Clan of Raghu), and two famous lyrical poems are Meghaduuta (The Cloud Messenger) and Ritusamhaara In this short epic, there are six chapters each describing one season in India and it starts with the Summer Season. This would also provide a clue about his time in the discussions later on .

Sethna¹³ discusses a book written by R . B. Pandey¹⁶ entitled , " Vikramaditya of Ujjayini " which this author believes as the right source for pursuing this task . It is a very scholarly work by Pandey in the fifties .

Pandey's reasons to place Kalidasa in the first century along with the king Vikramaditya , are given in Table 1 . This table also has this author's opinion in the third column where this author does not think that either Kalidasa or the king Vikramaditya lived in the first century BC.

Both , Sethna and Pandey agree that Kalidasa was in the court of Vikramaditya , as one of the nine gems . Pandey lists the names of nine gems which are given in Table 2 .

Another important author who has dealt with this issue is D. C. Sircar in his book - " Ancient Malwa and the Vikramaditya Tradition " .

There are several things which should be borne in mind when researching the problem of the time of Kalidasa . These are :

1. Who was Vikramaditya ?

2. Who started the Vikrama era and when ?

3. Kalidasa's association with the above two .

Pandey writes that Vikramaditya lived in the first century BC, and started the Vikrama era . Kalidasa was in his court , and so was Varahmihira . Thus , Kalidasa lived in the first century BC .

Sethna agrees with Pandey's point of view in all these respects and he places the Imperial Guptas in the third century BC based on the descriptions of the Puranas , much before Kalidasa . He considers Varahmihira also in the king Vikramaditya's court as one of the nine gems , just like Kalidasa .

When we come to Sircar¹⁸ , he , on the other hand , considers Chandragupta II as the Vikramaditya, and Kalidasa in his court . His agrees with the well accepted times of the historians like Tripathy²⁰ about the Imperial Guptas . These are shown in Table 3 . These times are much after the beginning of the Vikrama Era in 57 BC . He ( Sircar¹⁹ thinks that this era had its beginnings due to a Parthian chief named Vonones ( circa 58 - 10 BC ) who was the governor of East Iran , and who founded an independent kingdom in the eastern part of the Parthian Empire .

Sircar¹⁸ has done an extensive research work between the time of Pradyot ( sixth century BC ) to fifth century AD, to show that there was no such king as Vikramaditya in the first century BC . He considers Kalidasa in the time of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya , and Varahmihira much after him . He writes that the late Sungas ruled from Bhilsa in Central India after losing their kingdom at Pataliputra . According to Tripathy²⁰ , these Sungas are believed to be the first brahmin kings in the written history of India .

The author believes, though it is merely a conjecture , that Kalidasa could have known closely about these brahmin kings of eastern Malwa as Kalidasa himself was in the western Malwa . Secondly , it is entirely possible that Kalidasa himself could have been a brahmin because the brahmins then and even now, have been contributing richly to Sanskrit literature , as Kalidasa did . This author's proof about Kalidasa's time , which has been provided later on , is independent of these two points i.e., these two points do not constitute the proof for this paper.

Thus we see conflicting views on the historical perspective of Ancient India which includes the time of Golden Era of Indian History - the time of the Imperial Guptas . The same applies to the time of Kalidasa .

THE TIME OF INCORPORATION OF THE GREEK ASTRONOMY INTO INDIAN ASTRONOMY

Kaye¹¹ has written that Greek astronomy came to be known to the Hindus after Ptolemy , a Greek who lived in Egypt , in the years 85 AD to 165 AD . Regarding this , there has been wide agreement amongst the Indian astronomers and historians also - that the major exchange of ideas in this field took place during and after Ptolemy's time [ Kaye¹² ; Sircar¹⁹ , Abhyankar and Sidharth² ] . Abhyankar² who has contributed an article also besides being one of the editors in this reference , writes that Vedanga Jyotisa , the astronomical system of India began around 12th century BC , and the present ( siddhantic ) system was started during first to fifth century AD . The older (Vedanga Jyotisa ) system was called a nirayana system based on 27 asterisms ( nakshatras ) which divide the ecliptic , and are also called the mansions of the moon . The zero point of the nakshatra system was fixed in the siddhantic period at the vernal equinox of 410 AD ( the time of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya's ) . But there are two other prominent schools which place it at the vernal equinox of 285 AD ( chitra paksha ) , and 570 AD ( revati paksha ) . It should be remembered that Chandragupta II was using Ujjayini as his secondary capital away from his actual capital at Pataliputra . He had defeated the Sakas by this time ( in 410 AD ) . The school of astronomy had just been shifted from Pataliputra to Ujjayini [Joseph¹⁰ ] . The vernal equinox of 285 AD could have been fixed by the astronomers belonging to the Pataliputra school .

Why did they choose the equinox as the starting date ? The division of ecliptic into 12 parts , each part called raashi or zodiac constellation of 30 degrees each , was introduced into India at a later time , and it was not there at the time of use of Vedanga Jyotisa [ Burgess⁵ ; Kaye¹¹ ] . This is the reason that on finds the use of nakshatras in the Mahabharata and the Valmiki Ramayana . The Romans were using the zodiac system in the time when the Julian calendar was started in 46 BC. Their year started with the spring equinox { Kay¹²] . It was only in the time of Pope Gregory in 1582¹ that further refinements in the Julian calendar were introduced and the year started from January first . In India , the year started with winter solstice ( Uttarayana ) in vedic times [ Burgess⁵ ] . Table 4 shows the division of ecliptic into the two independent systems where the first point of ashwini - mesha is considered as the beginning of the year [ Abhyankar and Siddharth² ] . The spacing of the nakshatras is at 13.333 degrees interval whereas for the zodiac constellations - it is 30 degrees .

ASTRONOMICAL BASIS FOR THE DETRMINATION OF THE TIME OF KALIDASA

We also notice that from the siddhantic times until now , the year begins from spring equinox instead of the winter solstice , as it was during the Vedanga Jyotisa times .

Secondly , in Ritusamhaara , Kalidasa begins the seasons in Summer which is after the spring equinox in India . In the western countries , spring arrives after the vernal equinox but not in India . For example, the Republic Day of India - January 26 , was selected in 1950 as an auspicious day due to Vasanta Panchami . In Ritusamhaara ,this beginning could have been based on new year . If Kalidasa had been living in India in the first century BC then the new year would have been after the Uttarayana ( winter solstice ) .

All the three historians mentioned above [ Pandey , Sircar , and Sethna ] agree that Kalidasa had the knowledge of Greek astronomy . On page 117 , Sethna¹³ mentions that Kalidasa knew about Jametra which has been identified with Greek term diametron . This clearly shows that he had to be living after the Greek astronomy was introduced into India . so, he could not be living in the first century BC .

Next we come to the time of the king Vikramaditya in whose court Kalidasa was present . There are numerous references which mention about the famous inscriptions discussed by Fleet⁸ [ Balasubramanium^3,4 , Jain⁹ , Dass and Willis⁷ ]. These inscriptions are in cave 6 at Udayagiri near Bhopal . These inscriptions mention that Chandragupta II was present when they were being inscribed , and also , they give the tithi and the year of the Gupta era , when it was done . This tithi ( based on the planetary configurations ) has been ascertained to be on June 26 , 402 AD [ Sharan et. al ¹⁵ ] . Thus , the time of Chandragupta II is established to be in the last part of the fourth century , and the first part of the fifth century ] by independent astronomical calculations . Various other historians also place Chandragupta II at this time based on the descriptions of Puranas and other evidences . This establishes the time of Vikramaditya to be in the fourth and fifth century AD

WHY DOES VIKRAM SAMVAT START IN 57 BC ?

The next puzzle to deal with is the beginning date of the Vikrama era in 57 BC because, now we know from Sircar's research that Vikramaditya's time is in the fourth century AD , and which has also been confirmed by the astronomical calculations of the inscriptions in cave 6 at Udayagiri .

When one refers to Sharan¹⁴ , one can easily see that the astronomers in Vikramaditya's court went back in time , and matched their calendar with those of the Greeks or Romans who were basing the beginning of their year from the spring equinox , and also the starting time was taken as the transition of the equinox from the zodiac constellation named Aries to Pisces . Cunningham⁶ writes that the Vikrama era starts on the equinox day , but he did not know why the astronomers in Chandragupta Vikramaditya's court went back to 57 BC . The practice in India before this event was that the year began after the winter solstice ( Uttarayana ) .

If we look at the Greek or western astrology , even now they consider the equinox to be in Aries although it is almost in Aquarius due to the precession of the earth's axis .

CONCLUSIONS

In this work , the time of Kalidasa was pin pointed based on astronomical considerations primarily . This was because it is widely known that the exchange of concepts in astronomy between the Greeks ( Romans ) , and Indians took place after Ptolemy's time in the second century AD . The fact that Kalidasa knew about Greek astronomy was a very helpful clue .

Secondly , his descriptions in his work - Ritusamhaara , he begins his seasons from summer in India which is after the spring equinox . This further confirmed that he must have lived in times after the Greek astronomy was in use in India .

\REFERENCES

1. Abel, G. O., 1975, “Exploration of the Universe “, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Toronto, p.143.

2. Abhyankar , K. D. , and Sidharth, Editors , 1993 , " Treasures of Ancient Indian Astronomy " , Ajanta Publications Delhi , India , pp 47 - 77

3. Balasubramaniam, R., “Identity of Chandra and Vishnupadagiri of the Delhi Iron Pillar Inscription: Numismatic, Archaeological and Literary Evidence,” Bull. Metals Museum, 2000, 32, 42-64.

4. Balasubramaniam, R., Delhi Iron Pillar: New Insights, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, 2002, pp. 8-46.

5. Burgess, E., The Suryasiddhanta: A Textbook of the Hindu Astronomy, Motilal Banarsidas Private Limited , Delhi. 2000, pages xxxv, 123, 313 and 316.

6. Cunningham , A., Book of Indian Eras with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates " , Indological Book House Varanasi, India , 1970 , p 47

7. Dass, M.I., and Willis, M., “The Lion Capital from Udayagiri and the Antiquity of Sun Worship in Central India,” South Asian Studies, 2002, 18, 25-45.

8. Fleet, J.F., Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings and Their Successors, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, III (1888). Volume 3, pp. 324-327.

9. Jain, K. C., " Madhya Pradesh Through Ages, Part I " , B. R. Publishing Corporation , Delhi , India, 1997 , pp 131-305

10. Joseph, G, G., “The Crest of the Peacock: Non - Europeans Roots of Mathematics “, Princeton, U. S. A , 2000, Chs. 8, and 9.

11. Kaye , G. R. , 1981 , " Hindu Astronomy " , Cosmo Publications , New Delhi, India , p 39

12. Ibid , p 24

13. Sethna, K. D. , 1997 " Problems of Ancient India " , Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, India . pp 79-120 .

14. Sharan, A. M., 2004, “ Understanding of Periodic Motions and Utilization of this Knowledge in Ancient India ” Advances in Vibration Engineering , Vol 3 , No 2 , pp 177 - 183 ..

15. Sharan, A.M., Balasubramaniam, R., and Dass, M I. , " Astronomical Significance of Date of Sanakanika Inscription in Cave 6 at Udayagiri (nee Vishnupadagiri) , submitted for publication ,

16. Pandey, R. B. , 1951 , " Vikramaditya of Ujjayini " , Shatadala Prakashana, Banaras .

17. Sircar , D. C. , 1969 , " Ancient Malwa and Vikramaditya Tradition " , Munshiram Manoharlal , New Delhi , India , pp 21 - 93

18. Ibid, pp 94 - 128

19. Ibid, pp. 129 - 144

20. Tripathy, R. S. , 1985, " History of Ancient India " Motilal Banarsidas , Delhi , pp. 188 -289

TABLE 1: POINTS OF VIEWS ON KALIDASA'S TIME IN THE FIRST CENTURY BC

TABLE 2 : The Years of Some of the Famous Gupta Kings

TABLE 3 : THE NAMES OF NINE GEMS OF VIKRAMADITYA'S COURT

TABLE 4: ZODIAC SIGNS AND CORRESPONDING

NAKSHATRAS