The Meghaduta is a 111 stanza lyric poem written by Kalidasa, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets. It recounts how a yaksha convinces a passing cloud to take a message to his wife in Alaka, describing the sights along the journey. The poem established the genre of "messenger poems" and has been translated into many languages. It provides rich inspiration for artists in their visualizations of the scenes described.
The Meghaduta is a 111 stanza lyric poem written by Kalidasa, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets. It recounts how a yaksha convinces a passing cloud to take a message to his wife in Alaka, describing the sights along the journey. The poem established the genre of "messenger poems" and has been translated into many languages. It provides rich inspiration for artists in their visualizations of the scenes described.
The Meghaduta is a 111 stanza lyric poem written by Kalidasa, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets. It recounts how a yaksha convinces a passing cloud to take a message to his wife in Alaka, describing the sights along the journey. The poem established the genre of "messenger poems" and has been translated into many languages. It provides rich inspiration for artists in their visualizations of the scenes described.
The Meghaduta is a 111 stanza lyric poem written by Kalidasa, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets. It recounts how a yaksha convinces a passing cloud to take a message to his wife in Alaka, describing the sights along the journey. The poem established the genre of "messenger poems" and has been translated into many languages. It provides rich inspiration for artists in their visualizations of the scenes described.
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Meghadūta
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kalidasa writing The Cloud Messenger (Meghaduta), 375 CE illustration
Meghadūta (Sanskrit: ममेघददत literally Cloud Messenger)[1] is a lyric poem written by Kālidāsa, considered to be one of the greatest Sanskrit poets.
Contents [hide]
1About the poem
2Visualisation of Meghadūta
3See also
4Editions
5Translations
6References
7External links
About the poem[edit]
A poem of 111 stanzas, it is one of Kālidāsa's most famous works. The work is divided into two parts, Purva-megha and Uttara-megha. It recounts how a yakṣa, a subject of King Kubera (the god of wealth), after being exiled for a year to Central India for neglecting his duties, convinces a passing cloud to take a message to his wife at Alaka on Mount Kailāsa in the Himālaya mountains.[2] The yakṣa accomplishes this by describing the many beautiful sights the cloud will see on its northward course to the city of Alakā, where his wife awaits his return. In Sanskrit literature, the poetic conceit used in the Meghaduta spawned the genre of Sandesa Kavya or messenger poems, most of which are modeled on the Meghaduta (and are often written in the Meghaduta's "mandakranta" metre). Examples include the Hamsa-sandesha, in which Rama asks a hamsa bird to carry a message to Sita, describing sights along the journey. In 1813, the poem was first translated into English by Horace Hayman Wilson. Since then, it has been translated several times into various languages. As with the other major works of Sanskrit literature, the most famous traditional commentary on the poem is by Mallinātha. An excerpt is quoted in Canadian director Deepa Mehta's film, Water. The poem was also the inspiration for Gustav Holst's The Cloud Messenger Op. 30 (1909–10).
Visualisation of Meghadūta[edit] Meghadūta describes several scenes and is a rich source of inspiration for many artists. An example are the drawings by Nana Joshi.[3] Composer Fred Momotenko wrote the composition 'Cloud-Messenger', music for a multimedia performance with recorder, dance, projected animation and electronics in surround audio. The world premiere was at Festival November Music, with Hans Tuerlings (choreography), Jasper Kuipers (animation), Jorge Isaac (blockflutes) and dancers Gilles Viandier and Daniela Lehmann. [4]
