The Meghaduta, Cloud Messenger', is a love-lyric conceived by Kalidasa in a moment of rare inspiration. The hundred-fold beauties of Nature as seen in the rainy season of the Indian plains, the local legends of holy spots from Ramagiri to Kailasa, punctuating the path of the cloud, and the emotional reactions and sentiments of the flowers, plants, birds, animals, men and women of the country-side and cities and also of divine beings are interwoven in a poem of unexcelled charm. These different worlds of motifs present an idyllic lyric the like of which the world has rarely seen. Its permeating sentiment is Love in separation (Viraha-Sringara) of a youthful Yaksha from his beautiful wife.
Macdonell has observed: "Kalidasa'sMeghadūta is a lyrical gem which won the admiration of Goethe. It consists of 115 stanzas composed in the Mandakranta metre of four lines of seventeen syllables. The theme is a message, which an exile sends by a Cloud to his wife dwelling far away."
P. Johnstone writes about Kalidasa: 'In respect of true poetic feelings for the aspect of nature and insight into both the manly and the tender moods of human emotions, he stands very high among the great poets of all lands and ages. "The theme is a message which an exile sends by a Cloud to his wife dwelling far away. The exile is a Yaksha or attendant of Kubera: God of wealth, who for neglect of his duty, has been banished to the groves on the slopes of Rämagiri in Central India. Emaciated and melancholy, he sees at the approach of the rainy season, a dark cloud moving northwards. The sight fills his heart with yearning, and impels him to address to the cloud, a request to convey a message of hope to his wife in the remote Himalayas. In the first half of the poem the Yaksha describes power and beauty, the various scenes the cloud must traverse on its northward course: mount Amraküța, will rest, after quenching with showers the forest fires; the on whose peak it Narmada winding at the foot of the Vindhya hills; the town of Vidiśa and the stream of Vetravati; the city of Ujjayini in the land of Avanti; the sacred region of Kurukshetra; the Ganga and the mountain from which she sprang, white with snowfields; till Alakä on Mount Kailasa is finally reached. In the second half of the poem, the Yaksha first describes the beauty of the City and his own dwelling there; going on to paint in glowing colours the beauties of his wife, her surroundings and her occupations, he imagines her tossing on the couch, sleepless and emaciated, through the watches of the night. Then, when her eye rests on the window, the Cloud shall proclaim to her, with thunder-sound, her husband's message, that he is still alive and ever longs to behold her' (Macdonell).
Outwardly the Meghaduta is a love-poem imbued with the scarlet passion of youth. The Cloud is the symbol of Kama as suggested by Yaksha: "In Indra's realm you are the Sire Lover of Dame Nature (janami tväm prakriti-purusham kāmarūpaṁ maghonah, 6). The Cloud is Kamarupa, the basic instinct of Love born of the Mind, of the Creator (Manasija, or Samkalpayoni) which was the primeval seed of the divine will, as stated in the Rig Veda (Kämastadagre samavartatādhi manaso retah prathaman yadasit, RV.10.129.4). The Cloud is the great sprinkler of vital sap that fecundates the earth; so is Kama designated as Vrisha, 'sprinkler of the seminal germ'.
When the cloud appears Nature becomes aglow with the animation of Kama. The parched earth responds to the cloud's intimation by showing her mushroom off-shoots. The shrunken Vindhyan rills swell in amorous joy to greet the cloud's showers. The plants like the Kutaja, Kadali, Kadamba, put forth rich flowery offerings to the cloud. The cranes flying in the sky experience the joys of becoming fertile.
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