Kumarasambhava

courtesy: Smt.Saroja Ramanujam

asthyutthrasyaam dhiSi dhevathaathmaa himaalayo naama nagaaDhirajaHpoorvaaparou thoyaniDhee avagaahya sThithaH prThivyaaH iva maana dhandaH

 

 

There is a divine personality in the East, called Himaalaya who is the king of mountains. He stands like the measuring rod of earth dipping in the northern and southern oceans.

 

 

Kalidasa opens his epic with the first sloka beginning with the word asthi, meaning 'there is.' Why does he do so? There is a story behind this.

 

 

 

The legend has it that Kalidasa was an illiterate and ignorant. Theprincess Vilasavati of the land was very learned and spurned all suitorsby testing their intelligence and they all tricked her into marryingthis ignorant young man presenting him as a learned one.On the firstnight she asked him 'asthi kaSchith vaak viSeshaH, ' meaning , "Isthere any verbal skill for you?" and she came to know that she wastricked. She told him to go and pray to Goddess Kali and by doing so, he was blessed by Kalimatha and became the greatest poet of Aryavartha

 

 

He composed three epics starting with each of the three words in herquestion, namely, asthi, kaSchith and Vaak. The epic Raghuvamsa begins with the sloka vagarThaaviva samprkthou, containins the word 'vaak.'The other one Meghadhutha which begins with the words 'kaSchith kaanthaavirahaguruNaa' has the word kaSchith and this one Kumarasambhava begins with the word 'asthi.  This is the best of his kavyas and the slokas are full of beauty and grandeur.

 

 

Any epic should begin with either a blessing, aaSeeH, or a salutation to a deity, namaskriyaa, or with specifying the subject, vasthu nirdheSaH, according to the kaavya lakshana, aaSeernamaskriyaa vasthu nirdheSo vaapi than mukham. This kavya of kalidasa starts with the direct denotation of the subject matter.

 

 

First seventeen slokas are the description of Himalayas.  The Himalayas is named as the king of mountains,  situated in the north and extends from the ocean in the east till the ocean in thewest. So the poet imagines that he is standing like a measuring rod with arms extended from east to west.

 

 

The word dhevathaathmaa is used in the meaning of being the substratum of divinity since Siva resides there and  Parvati was born there. So Himalayas or Himavan, who is the personification of the mountain is raised to the status of a divine personality and termed as the dhevathaathma.