Vasanta in Kāḷidāsa’s Ṛtusaṃhāra
Kāḷidāsa’s Ṛtusaṃhāra is a collection of subhāṣhita (“well-said”) poetic epigrams about the six seasons in six cantos of lyrical verses. It is a beautiful picturisation of the natural changes of all the six seasons are portrayed. In the context of the spring season in the Ṛtusaṃhāra, the reader can visualise a beautiful picture of nature with trees full of flowers, waters, lotuses, fragrant wind, pleasant evenings, delightful days and women brimming with passion. Kāḷidāsa’s descriptions of the seasons mirror those prescribed in the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa, where the picture of Vasanta contains blooming trees, the cuckoo, honey bees and joyful men and women. The love of nature and the minute observation of the season unfolding is not merely of an abstract nature, insensate or restricted to flora and fauna, but rather, closely linked to man and woman and their moods and modes.
As Aurobindo says about Kāḷidāsa’s “Seasons”, or Ṛtusaṃhāra, as “not only an interesting document in the evolution of a poetic genius of the first rank, but in itself a work of extraordinary force and immense promise, “There is his power of felicitous and vivid simile; …….. there is his mastering accuracy and lifelikeness in description, conspicuous especially in the choice and building of the circumstantial epithets… already they (the similes) have the sharp Kalidasian ring, true coin of his mint, though not yet possessed of the later high values”. Further, “most decisive of all are the strokes of vivid description that give the poem its main greatness and fulfil its purpose. The seasons live before our eyes as we read.” Aurobindo writes that the descriptions which remain perpetually with the eye, visible and concrete as an actual painting, belong, in the force with which they are visualised and the mangificant architecture of phrase with which they are presented, to Kälidäsa alone among Sanskrit poets. Its splendid diction and versification, its vigour, fire and force, its sweetness of spirit and its general promise and to some extent actual presentation of a first-rate poetic genius must have made it a literary event of the first importance. Especially it is significant in its daring gift of sensuousness. A vivid and virile interpretation of sense-life in Nature, a similar interpretation of all clements of human life capable of greatness of beauty, seen under the light of the senses and expressed in the terms of an aesthetic appreciation, this is the spirit of Kalidāsa’s first work as it is of his last.”
The Ṛtusaṃhāra is at once a poem of seasons and a poem of love. The descriptions are addresses of the lover to his beloved. Each verse is a vision of the lover’s eyes, an articulation of his love-laden heart, so that its fringes are sensitive and vibrant with the overtones of a recollection or a prospect. The recollections or prospects, expressed or implied, are of situations and modes of their enjoyment; with each season the milieu changes, but the passion and enthusiasm continues. Heat, downpour or cold, each has its own compensations; indeed they are all welcome for the fresh venues they offer to the quests and fulfilments of the lovers. So the changing seasons make no difference, and the lover with enthusiasm, tells the beloved, “The Spring advances towards us, my beloved, like a warrior, determined to pierce our hearts” (VI. 1)
“Plush mango sprouts are his arrows sharp,
a row of bees his elegant bowstring —
my dear, the warrior that is spring
has now arrived to pierce the hearts
of those ready to make love.”
“Trees filled with flowers,
waters with lilies,
breezes fragrant,
women attractive,
pleasant days,
and evenings happy —
all, my darling,
are more delightful
with the spring’s advent.”
“Waters in the tanks and wells,
gems set in a woman’s girdle,
lovely ladies, and the moonlight,
and mango tree groves
covered with blossoms —
all are blessed by spring.”
“The rounded hips of graceful girls
are bedecked in silken skirts
dyed crimson with safflower juice,
and their bosoms in fine wraps,
with saffron ochre-tinted.”
“In their ears, some new and matching
flowers of laburnum,
aśoka garlands on their breasts,
and in their hair fresh jasmine blooms —
all these add a splendid glow
to the maidens beautiful.”
“The male cuckoo, intoxicated
with the wine that is but mango juice,
and aroused, kisses its sweetheart,
and the bee inside the lotus flower
also starts a buzz melodious
for pleasing its inamorata.”
“Mango trees, their branches lovely
with blossoms, and bending down
with clusters of coppery sprouts
that are quivering in the wind,
now fill all the hearts of maidens
with ardour and excitement.”
“Their name means the absence of sorrow:
but aśoka trees, from the very ground,
now covered in sprouting buds and blooms
of coppery red, like coral beads,
fill the hearts of girls, who behold them,
with a certain sadness.”
“Young vines of atimukta jasmine —
their charming blossoms kissed
by bees that are inebriated,
their soft and tender buds
trembling in a gentle breeze —
fill minds of lovers who now see them
with a sudden eagerness.”
“For lovers who relish the glow
upon the faces of their sweethearts,
on seeing the rival splendour
of new blooms on kurabaka trees,
which heart, my dear, will not be smitten
and tormented by Kāma’s arrows?”
“In the woodland, everywhere,
the flame of the forest trees have shed
all their leaves, their branches bent
with flowers bright as blazing fire,
and the earth gleams in the spring,
like a new bride in red attire.”
“Have they not been hurt already,
by flowers from the flame of the forest
that look like the parrot’s beak,
or set on fire by the blossoms
of laburnum trees —
that this cuckoo, with its sweet notes,
now repeatedly strikes the hearts of youths
already set on a pretty girl?”
“The sweet and joyous coos of cuckoos,
and the tipsy buzz of bees
take but a moment to excite
the modest, bashful hearts of brides
even from conventional homes,
sheltered and respectable.”
“Thrilling the branches, full of blooms,
on the mango trees;
spreading the sweet songs of the cuckoos
in every direction;
now free of frost, the lovely spring breeze
charms and steals the hearts of men.”
“In this month of spring’s advent
with its sweet sounds of cuckoos and bees,
women, with clinging golden girdles
and garlands to their bosoms glued,
their limbs relaxed in the pride of love,
seize by force the hearts of men.”
“Delightful with the cuckoos’ song,
and with a southern breeze suffused,
its perfume provided by
sweet sprinkles of honey
that come with swarms of bees:
may this springtime be for you
the best of times for bliss.”
Select verses taken from Canto 6, Vasanta ṛtu from Kāḷidāsa’s Ṛtusamhāram. Translated by A. N. D. Haksar
References:
- Ritusamharam. A. N. D. Haksar. India: Penguin Random House India Private Limited, 2018.
2. Rtu In Sanskrit Literature Dr. V. Raghavan
3. Kālidāsa. The Rtusamhara of Kalidasa. M. R. Kale. India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1996.
4. Kalidasa, Sri Aurobindo. 1929
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