kumAra  
mahAkavi kAlidAsa
virachita
kumArasambhavam
The Advent of Kumara
 

 

kumArasambhavam is another master piece from mahAkavi kAlidAsa. Though this too has many commentaries, the generally accessible and understandable one is that of mahaamahopaadhyaaya mallinaatha suuri, according which this translation is brought to the readers..

One such work as this is that of S. D. Gajendragadkar with bAla bodhini vyAkhya which is published with crituical notes and explanation by Raghunath Damodar Karmarkar, M. A, Ph.. D. Professor of Sanskrit, New Poona Collegge, Pooua, in the year 1923. Unfortunately we can get only first three cantos of this book. There are some more like that of Karadikar and Shailaja et al, that too in bits and pieces. Of course there is M. R. kAle's work, if only the readers can understand that highly commated translation. 

Even in vernacular Telugu language, we have only one edition of vedam venkaTarAya shAstry, that too upto six cantos. 

 

This is being attempted at the behest of Sanskrit students in the series of word for word translations, after Valmiki Ramayana, Ritu samhaaram, Gita Govindam, raghuvamsham only to tell apart the words used by the poet and their meanings.  Since this work of ours is not the grand finale to the purport of this poem, please treat this as a guidebook to masterwork, since it is a fanciful and humble attempt to say what the poet had said. kAlidAsa himself said in raghuvamsham with a similar fancifulness - caapalaaya... Let us become students first, to become pundits at a later time.

Hoever, the readers are provided with the PDF files of past masters, not one, but a series of them, as we cannot get their whole book.In these PDFs readers will encounter a three or four line para as translation, but they can read vast xplanation together with grammar points, connected legends, ref to context stories etc.

 

It is a nuisance to attempt translating kAlidAsa, nothing ends anywhere, no amount of typing gets 'his' verbal picture satisfactorily, more so, wading through his poetics will be bogging us down continuously. Hence, there are not many translations, other than small works like meghadUtam etc, for fear of failure in communication. Yet, here is another attempt...

 

 

thanks to:

    1]  Utz Podzeit for Gretil collection for transliteration / encoding  and Ulrich Stiehl, Rainweg 78, 69118 Heidelberg (Germany) of SanskritWeb, for helping in converting REE format of Gretil to Itrans encoding.

 

desiraju hanumanta rao October, 2010