CALIDASA is the tome of one of the most admired Indian poets. hardly anything is known concerning the circumstances of his life. A traditioo, very general) y believed in India, makes him one of the OW14 roe/ or distinguished poets who lived at the court of Ring Vioranaklitys. If by this Dune the same sovereign is to be under stood from whose reign (s.c. 56) the years of the Sarnvat era are counted, Wider must have flourished about the middle of the century precediag the commeneement of our era. Another king of the name Vicramblitya ascended the throne in A.D. 191, and a third In ..ti. 441 ; and several consideration., especially the highly-polished N) le in which the weeks attributed to Widen. are written, favour the assumption that the poet lived under Vleramiditya 11. At all ernes our author must be distinguished from a poet of the same name who lived in the 12th century at the court of Itajfi Blietja, the sovereign of Diehl. The Nalerdaya, a Sanscrit poem on the subject of the story of lisle and Damr7anti, from the MahAbbamta, written hi an eicrediagly forced and artificial style, full of rhymes and plays upoo the sound of weeds, to which the name of Within is affixed, should probably be attributed to the Callan of Raja Bhetja's court lint however imperfect our Information about Widen may be, wo in genius.
works abundant evidence of the power of his geniu not hesitate to prononnce him the most universal, the least• constrained by national peculiarities, not merely of all Indian, but of all Asiatic poets with whose works we are acquainted ; and to this element tone of his mind, which while seeming to breathe the purely haulms air of Greece, yet retains all the quickness and glow of feeling, all the "avidness of description and imagery of the Hindoo, must, in our opiniou, be mainly attributed the uudivided admiration with which the translation of his drama, ‘SacuntalA,' by Sir William Jones (the trot work that made known the name of Undies to Europeans), has been everywhere received. This translation appeared for the Int time at Calcutta in 1769, but was soon reprinted in England, and wise from the English, at an early period, retranslated into several other Rampages of Europe. We may particularly notice the German translation by George Forster, who appended to it a glossary ozplana tory of the antigens to Indian mythology, natural history, itc. The popularity which the play has acquired on the continent Is attested by the fact that emend sttempte have been made to adapt it to the stage. In 1630 the Sanacrit teat of 'Sam:Rale' was published at Paris from a manuscript belonging to the 'Llibliothhque de Roi ' by the late Profesoce A. L. Clary, with an original French translation; and upon this editing' is founded a new translation into German by II. Hirzel, Zenith, 1133, &to. in which the various metres of the text are Mutated. Both Sir Willirm Jones. translation and Ch4xy's edition
however exhibit the work of Matta according to the Interpolated shape in which it is DOW current in Maga. This discovery was made by Mr. Hertnana lirockhaus, of Leipzig, who, In 1835, examined and cotated the numerous manuscripts of the drama in the library of the East India Cotoruny, and In the private collection of Professor IL Wilson at Oxford. The most recent editions are one of the text pub. limbed at Calcutta In 1810; one of the text with a German translation by Boolitliock. Penn, 1816; another German translation by E. Meier, Stutgari, 11:42; and a free English translation, in prose and verse, by Professor Monier Williams, remarkable for the accuracy of the version sad for the Imlay of its typography: llertford, 1855.
We must cord°. Gamlen to a mere enumeration of the other principal weeks of Midis*. Besides Secuntale' we poems two other dramatis poems attributed to him—' VkvamOrvael,' founded upon an andeut Indian legend of the levee of King Jurtravas and Unlash a nymph (translated by 11. IL Wilson in his 'Hindu Theatre;' the teat printed at Calcutta in 1830, and critically re-edited with a Latin translation by Loot, Berlin,1533, 4to; and again with a German tmarlatiou by Bollsoses, ht. Petersburg, 1846); and 'DhOrtasamigams; a botieerpse piece, as yet inedited. The' Magha Data,' or ' Cloud Me auger,' a lyrical poem of only 116 atansaa, contains the complaints of a demigod banished to earth, who entreats a passing cloud to convey as at eternal. message to his wife. It was edited with a translation late rarlieb Imes and with notes by H. IL Wilson, Calcutta, 1819, Ito ; by (lQldamelaWr, Donn, 1311 : and German translations have been published by Herm', Zurich, 1 8 4 6 ; and by Max Mailer, the present professor of modern languages at Oxford, Kiinigeberg, 1847. The • Ragbu Vanm' is a narrative poem in celebration of the family of Itighu, In which Rama, the hero of the Item:Van; and as the incar nation of Vishnu an object of groat veneration with the Iliudoos, was born : it has been edited with a Latin translation by Stenzier, London, 1832, 4to, and with a Sanacrit prose paraphrase by the pundits of Fort William at Calcutta, 1832, 8eo. Tho s Cumira Sambhava' is another eplo poem designed to celebrate the birth of Cumara, the son of Parrett; but it. closes with Parvaife wedding. An edition and trans lation of this work by Stenzler was published under the auspices of the London Oriental Translation Fund at Berlin in 1838. Part of the first canto is given In Sanacrit and English, and with interesting annotations, by (we believe) the Rev. Dr. Mill of Calcutta, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for July, 1833, pp. 329-358 A short didactic poem on prosody, exhibiting the most common sorts r of metre, and called 'Srutabodha, is likewise attributed to Calidasa as well as two or three other short pieces.