Kalidas' Meghadoot And Amarkantak

Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh / Image Credit

In his poem, Cloud-messenger (Meghaduta), Kalidasa, the greatest of India’s dramatists and poets, describes the lands, sights, rivers and cities over which the messenger has to pass. Amarkantak (in the Anuppur district of Madhya Prades) finds mentions as a part of his description of the topography.

Meghdoot which is one of the most popular of Sanskrit poems and whose theme has been imitated in one form or another by several later poets in both Sanskrit and the vernaculars, describes a yaksha (earth -spirit, a sort of gnome or fairy) who lives in the divine city of Alaka, near Mount Kailasa in the Himalayas. He had been banished for a year to the hill of Ramagiri (in Madhya Pradesh) for offending his master, Kubera ( Dikpala ( guardian) of the northern quarter, lord of the precious metals, minerals jewels and wealth).

Separation from his beautiful wife, whom he has left behind in the beautiful jewelled city of Alaka, is the worst aspect of his exile. So when the rainy season starts, he sees a large cloud passing northwards to the mountains and pours out his heart to it.

Amarkantak must have been a beautiful town during the Gupta period as attested by Kalidas who was patronised by Gupta ruler Chandra Gupta II (380-423) whose reign marks the high watermark of ancient Indian culture.

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