Several great indian rishis were also great poets. The
sages who wrote the vedas, valmiki, vyasa, alwars, nayanmars,
thiruvalluvar, etc., immediately come to mind. Even our mathematicians and philosophers, when they
wanted to say things, put down their thoughts in verse more often than
not.
A tamil movie about kALidAsa, arguably the most famous and influential poet, was made in 1966, and I watched it this weekend. Although I had seen some scenes as a child, I did not remember much from that. Overall an enjoyable, if not historically accurate movie with memorable KV Mahadevan songs. The movie puts together three other interesting and important historical characters into one story. shivAji gaNesan portrays kALidAsa as a poet in the court of bhoja deva paramAra. bhoja himself was a great philosopher king, polymath and the author of several works in samskrita and prakrita. But kAlidAsa was at least 500 years before bhoja deva, and lived during the gupta period. The movie also features bAnabhatta, who was the AsthAna kavi in king Harsha's court ~ 300 years before bhoja. He only has one line in the movie where he introduces himself as bAna kavi. The third interesting character is dandin. He was born in kAnchIpuram and was patronized by the pallavas during the 8th century. It is quite likely the life times of these four characters did not even have any overlaps. But kaLidAsa is so famous and influential that all the rest would have known and revered him.
A tamil movie about kALidAsa, arguably the most famous and influential poet, was made in 1966, and I watched it this weekend. Although I had seen some scenes as a child, I did not remember much from that. Overall an enjoyable, if not historically accurate movie with memorable KV Mahadevan songs. The movie puts together three other interesting and important historical characters into one story. shivAji gaNesan portrays kALidAsa as a poet in the court of bhoja deva paramAra. bhoja himself was a great philosopher king, polymath and the author of several works in samskrita and prakrita. But kAlidAsa was at least 500 years before bhoja deva, and lived during the gupta period. The movie also features bAnabhatta, who was the AsthAna kavi in king Harsha's court ~ 300 years before bhoja. He only has one line in the movie where he introduces himself as bAna kavi. The third interesting character is dandin. He was born in kAnchIpuram and was patronized by the pallavas during the 8th century. It is quite likely the life times of these four characters did not even have any overlaps. But kaLidAsa is so famous and influential that all the rest would have known and revered him.
Here I simply record a verse from a
scene in which kALidAsa is requested by the king to recite a very
specific verse (18th verse of meghadUta). This enthused me a lot since
we read these sections in our meghadUtam study circle recently. shivAji
recites it thus:
A
beautiful and naughty verse. The tamil verse does not follow chandas
rules (or sandam--சந்தம் as in tamil prosody) rigidly and tries to convey a similar meaning as the original. The
original though, in the elegant mandAkrAnta meter is in a league of its
own:
छन्नोपान्तः परिणतफलद्योतिभिः काननाम्रैः
त्यवय्यारूढे शिखरमचलः स्निग्धवेणीसवर्णे ।
नूनं यास्यत्यमरमिथुनप्रेक्षणीयाम् अवस्थाम्
मध्ये श्यामः स्तन इव भुवः शेषविस्तारपाण्डुः॥
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