This article is about the ancient Indian poem. For the Indian military operation, see
Operation Meghdoot.
Meghadūta (
Sanskrit: मेघदूत literally Cloud Messenger)[1] is a
lyric poem written by
Kālidāsa (c. 4th–5th century CE), considered to be one of the greatest
Sanskrit poets. It describes how a yakṣa (or nature spirit), who had been banished by his master to a remote region for a year, asked a cloud to take a message of love to his wife. The poem became well-known in Sanskrit literature and inspired other poets to write similar poems (known as "messenger-poems", or
Sandesha Kavya) on similar themes.
Korada Ramachandra Sastri wrote Ghanavrttam,[2] a sequel to Meghaduta.
About the poem
A poem of 120[3]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.[4] 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
Mandākrāntā metre). Examples include the
Hamsa-sandesha, in which
Rama asks a
Hansa 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.
The great scholar of Sanskrit literature,
Arthur Berriedale Keith, wrote of this poem: "It is difficult to praise too highly either the brilliance of the description of the cloud’s progress or the pathos of the picture of the wife sorrowful and alone. Indian criticism has ranked it highest among Kalidasa’s poems for brevity of expression, richness of content, and power to elicit sentiment, and the praise is not undeserved."[5]
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).
Simon Armitage appears to reference Meghaduta in his poem ‘Lockdown’.[citation needed]
It is believed the picturesque
Ramtek near
Nagpur inspired Kalidasa to write the poem.[6]
Visualisation of Meghadūta
Meghadūta describes several scenes and is a rich source of inspiration for many artists.
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.[8]
Influence
Indian filmmaker
Debaki Bose adapted the play into a 1945 film titled Meghdoot.[9]
Sri sesaraj Sarma Regmi, ed. (1964), Meghadutam of mahakavi Kalidasa (in Sanskrit and Hindi), chowkhmba vidybhavan varanasi-1
Ramakrishna Rajaram Ambardekar, ed. (1979), Rasa structure of the Meghaduta - A critical study of Kalidaas's Meghaduta in the light of Bharat's Rasa Sootra (in English and Sanskrit)
Translations
The Meghadūta has been translated many times in many Indian languages.
The Bengali poet
Buddhadeva Bose translated Meghadūta into Bengali in 1957.
Dr. Jogindranath Majumdar translated Meghaduta in Bengali keeping its original 'Mandakranta Metre' for the first time published in 1969
Acharya Dharmanand Jamloki Translated Meghduta in Garhwali and was well known for his work.