TALES FROM THE HINDU DRAMATISTS - Awaken Video

had no doubt suffered from the pangs of poverty and neglect and
travelled a great deal. He professed the _Saiva_ form of worship.
His chief poems are the Raghuvansam, the Kumarasambhavam, the Meghadutam
and the Ritusanharam. It is believed that he wrote a treatise on
Astronomy and one on Sanskrit Prosody. His genius was of a versatile
nature. He was a poet, a dramatist and an astronomer. His works bespeak
the superior order of his scholarship--his acquaintance with the
important systems of philosophy, the Upanishads and the Puranas;--his
close observation of society and its intricate problems;--his delicate
appreciation of the most refined feelings, his familiarity with the
conflicting sentiments and emotions of the human heart,--and his keen
perception of and deep sympathy with the beauties of Nature. His
imagination was of a very high order and of a constructive nature. His
power of depicting all shades of character,--high and low,--from the
king to the common fisherman, is astonishing. His similes are so very
apt that they touch directly the heart and at once enlist the sympathy
of the reader. He is called the poet of the sentiment of Love as this
sentiment was his _forte_. His diction is chaste and free from
extravagance and is marked by that felicity of expression, spontaneity
and melody which have earned for him the epithet--"the favoured child of
the Muse."
SAKUNTALA.
Of all Sanskrit dramas, Sakuntala has acquired the greatest celebrity.
It is not in India alone that it is known and admired. Its excellence
and beauty are acknowledged by learned men in every country of the
civilised world. It was the publication of a translation of this play by
Sir William Jones, which Max Muller thinks "may fairly be considered as
the starting point of Sanskrit Philology." "The first appearance of
this beautiful specimen of dramatic art," he continues, "created, at
the time, a sensation throughout Europe, and the most rapturous praise
was bestowed upon it by men of high authority in matters of taste."
THE MORAL OF THE PLAY.
The recovery of the ring, like its loss, was a matter of pure accident
and points to the moral that the joys and sorrows of human beings depend
in most cases upon circumstances which lie beyond their control.
MALAVIKAGNIMITRA.
The play was not written at a time when Buddhism was despised, and had
already been driven out of India, but when it was still regarded with
favour, and was looked up to with reverence.
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