Previous Year Question

1. Meghaduta — a work of Kalidasa: Meghaduta is a celebrated lyrical poem by the great Sanskrit poet Kalidasa. In it, an exiled Yaksha makes a cloud his messenger to carry a message to his wife living in Alaka. A major part of the poem consists of beautiful descriptions of the natural and geographical scenes encountered along the cloud's journey.

2. Raghuvamsam — a work of Kalidasa: Raghuvamsa is a celebrated Mahakavya of Kalidasa. It describes various rulers of the Raghu dynasty and their characters. It is regarded as one of the principal works of the Sanskrit Mahakavya tradition.

Historical literary material available through IGNCA explicitly includes Ritusamhara, Malavikagnimitra, Kumarasambhava, Meghaduta, Abhijnanashakuntalam and Raghuvamsa among the principal works of Kalidasa.

3. Shringar Shatak — not a work of Kalidasa: Shringara Shataka is traditionally associated with Bhartrihari. Three celebrated collections of one hundred verses are attributed to Bhartrihari—Niti Shataka, Shringara Shataka and Vairagya Shataka—collectively known as the Shatakatraya.

Shringara Shataka contains verses dealing with love, beauty, attraction, human desire and relations between men and women.

It is useful to note that there has been scholarly discussion concerning the authorship associated with Bhartrihari—particularly whether Bhartrihari the grammarian and Bhartrihari the poet of the Shatakas were the same person. However, in the traditional literary classification, Shringara Shataka is attributed to Bhartrihari, not Kalidasa.