Kalidasa - Essays and Translations

by Sri Aurobindo

"Kalidasa", writes Sri Aurobindo, "is the great, the supreme poet of the senses, of aesthetic beauty, of sensuous emotion. His main achievement is to have taken every poetic element, all great poetical forms, and subdued them to a harmony of artistic perfection set in the key of sensuous beauty. In continuous gift of seizing an object and creating it to the eye he has no rival in literature."

During the first decade of the twentieth century, Sri Aurobindo wrote a number of essays that were meant to be chapters of a comprehensive work on Kalidasa.

He also translated one of the poet's plays, "Vikramorvasie or the Hero and the Nymph", along with parts of his other works.

"Kalidasa: Essays and Translations" contains, for the first time in a single volume, all of Sri Aurobindo's writings on and translations from "the great representative poet" of classical Sanskrit literature.

About the Author:

Sri Aurobindo was an Indian/Hindu nationalist, scholar, poet, mystic, evolutionary philosopher, yogi and guru. After a short political career in which he became one of leaders of the early movement for the freedom of India from British rule, Sri Aurobindo turned to the development and practice of a new spiritual path which he called the "integral yoga," the aim of which was to further the evolution of life on earth by establishing a high level of spiritual consciousness which he called the Supermind that would represent a divine life.

Sri Aurobindo wrote prolifically in English on his spiritual philosophy and practice, on social and political development, on Indian culture including extensive commentaries and translations of ancient Indian scriptures, on literature and poetry including the writing of much spiritual poetry.