The elegy and its many faces

[Part 5]

Last week I discussed the concept of elegy as it manifested itself in two classical Indian texts.- the Mahabharata and the Purananuru. Today I wish to discuss one of my favorite Sanskrit poems, The Meghaduta, (The Cloud Messenger) in terms of its elegiac propensities. As a student of Sanskrit, I remember studying this text at the Peradeniya University and being so absorbed in its poetic texture and verbal under-music. This is a text to which I return regularly with increasing enthusiasm and anticipation.

It seems to me that there are two versions of the term elegy - a strong version and weak version. The strong version tells us that the idea of death is central to the elegy; the weaker version believes that the ideas of loss, of separation are adequate. According to this dichotomy The Meghaduta, which belongs to the ‘khanda kavya’ tradition (minor poems) is an elegy although it does not deal with death or mourn the death of a beloved person. Indeed, many of the Sanskrit poetic texts that have as their declared interest the generation of the aesthetic emotion of love in separation (vipralambha sringara) belongs to this latter category. His other lyrical poem The Ritusamhara (Gathering of the Seasons) represents the power of love-in-union.

Kalidasa is the author of the Meghaduta, and he is generally regarded as the greatest poet and playwright of India. It was for nothing that he was referred to as the Teacher of Poets ( kavi kula guru). The lyrical beauty that characterizes his poems and plays is unsurpassed. He lived in the fourth or the fifth century; evidence is scanty and so much of Kalidasa’s biography is shrouded in mystery. Among his works are the ‘Raguvamsa’, which charts the royal line of descent of which Rama was part, is considered to be the finest Sanskrit poem and Sakuntala, as it is popularly known, which won the highest praise from writers like Goethe, is by common consent the greatest Sanskrit stage play.

The ‘Meghaduta’, or The Cloud Messenger, is a delightful poem that gives full rein to Kalidasa’s indubitable imagination and creative powers. The poem consists of 114 four line stanzas, and deals with the predicament of a demi-god (yaksha), who was banished from his home for neglect of duty. Consequently he is separated from his wife. The poem depicts the way in which he in desperation requests a cloud to carry a message to his separated wife. This is the kernel of the poem, and Kalidasa elaborates it using the 17-syllabled mandakranta meter (literally slowly approaching meter). Indeed it needs to be said that this is exactly the appropriate meter to capture the reflexivity and the poignancy, associated with the experience the poem seeks to reconfigure. This meter both forwards and contains, as any well-chosen meter should, the dominant and privileged emotion. The poem consists of two parts- the Purva Megha and Uttara Megha;the first part which ends in 65th stanza deals with the journey, and the second half with a description of Alaka, where his beloved is.

Lyrical poetry

As the title suggests, ‘The Meghaduta’ represents a sub-genre of lyrical poetry referred to as message poetry. It marks the genesis of a powerful genre that inspired many imitators but none could ever rise to the high standards set by Kalidasa. This is, of course, not to suggest that the idea of message-sending is absent in earlier texts. The ancient treatise on drama, The Natyasastra, refers to the messenger (duti) as one among the identified characters; in the Rig Veda we come across Sarama the hound sent by the gods as a messenger.

And in the Mahabharata, in the Nala-Damayanti episode a golden swan is entrusted with the task of carrying messages between Nala and Damayanti. However, it is in ‘The Meghaduta’ that the idea of a message-poem was given concrete shape and invested with lyrical beauty in a way that would serve as a model worthy of emulation for subsequent poets. In the South India, there was a strong tradition of message poetry that exercised a palpable impact on the literary sensibility, and in our own Sinhala poetic tradition, message poetry (sandesha kavya) play a pivotal role. Some of our finest poetical works work within the compass of this sub-genre.

Anyone reading The Meghaduta, even in translation, is bound to be struck by its exquisite lyrical beauty. Part of this beauty arises from the skill with which the poet has been able to capture the physical landscape through moving imagery and infuse it with a transcendental aura. Verses such as the following, which I have translated from the original Sanskrit, should illustrate this pint cogently.

Its slopes covered with the glow of ripened mangoes

And you, on the mountain peak, darkly shining like a glossy coil of hair

It will indeed attract the gaze of celestial lovers

Like a great breast of the earth, dark at the center, a golden gleam around.

Resting for a while on the peak, whose groves stir the brides of foresters

Sprinkle a shower, then move very rapidly on the road beyond

You will witness at the foot of Vindhya mountain, the Reva river

Its streams fragmented like ash on an elephant’s flanks.

Verbal beauty

What is interesting about The Meghaduta is that this verbal beauty, the lyrical intensity, is wedded to a complex structural organization of the poetic text. Most critics pay scant attention to this aspect. To my mind, the architecture of the poem is extremely important and invites closer study. This poem, with its complex symmetries, can prove to be a rich treasure-trove for literary analysts of a structuralist persuasion. Let me cite one or two instances in which this complex verbal organization that I refer to finds expression. In the opening stanza, the demi-god’s fall from grace and the concomitant fading of glory is captured in the trope ‘astam gamita mahima’, which literally means that the son of his glory has set. This is indeed a powerful locution. What is interesting about is that the hope for resurrection of his glory is also implied in this trope just like the setting sun is bound to rise in the sky the following morning.

What is also interesting about this trope is that it returns in the final stanza of the poem, bringing the text to a circular completion. Similarly, at the conclusion of the poem readers are made aware of the fact that they are still perched on Ramagiri and that the dark cloud is still hugging the peak of the hill. Has anything changed? It is indeed a question worth pondering. But what is clear is that the poem has returned to the location from where it began. Throughout the poem, Kalidasa establishes symmetries such as these and he persuades words, tropes, events to echo each other reflecting a supremely organized creative intelligence behind the lines.

The Meghaduta is an elegy in the weaker sense that I stated earlier. What I mean by this is that there is no death and the mourning of the deceased in this poem as would be the case in typical elegies. However, the poet deals with the separation from his wife in elegiac terms. All elegies deal with the issue of consolation and solace for the grieving subject. The very poem that comes into being as a result of the grieving and the desire to put it into words is clearly a means of solace.

In The Meghaduta this desire for consolation and solace finds articulation in complex strategies of verbal organization and texture. In this regard, I wish to focus on five aspects that invite closer examination. If you recognize a whiff of deconstruction in my reading, let me reassure you that it is not unintended.

First, the relationship between the demi-god (yaksa) who has been exiled for dereliction of duty and the cloud that is to carry a message to his young wife is extremely interesting. There is indeed a complex relationship between the two which adds significantly to the power of the poem. While the poet praises the cloud for its generosity and kindness, he also raises the question whether the cloud is not just a part of nature consisting of elements. Indeed this tension is a condition of its own power.

A mixture of vapor, light, water and air what does a cloud

Have to do with a message that can be conveyed by a sentient being

But yet the yaksha in desperation entrated it

For those who arte lovelorn mistake the sentient for the insentient

This is followed immediately by the following stanza which introduces a contradictory train of thought.

Born in the illustrious lineage of clouds, renowned in the world

I know you are the minister of Indra, taking any shape you will

Owing to the decree, far from my wife, I implore you

Better futile pleas to the noble, than fruitful to the vulgar,

Efficaciousness

This doubt about the efficaciousness of the cloud and its valorization as a generous entity puts in play an ambiguity that imparts a sense of complexity to the musings of the demi-god. His confidence erases itself even as it inscribes itself in the text.

What is interesting about the cloud is that the plight of the demi-god has been displaced on to the cloud; the cloud becomes his alter-ego. While he remains in seclusion in exile, the cloud roams over the landscape freely. As the poem unfolds, the poet establishes an erotic relationship between the cloud and the landscape.

This becomes a supplement in the Derridean sense, to the experience of the demi-god and his beloved. His poem operates within the well-established lover-beloved (nayaka-nayika) tradition of Sanskrit literature. The relationship between the cloud and the landscape becomes one that is erotically charged reminding us of the ‘nayaka-nayika’ tradition so characteristic of Sanskrit art and literature. Kalidasa, very skillfully, develops the erotic relationship between the cloud and the mountain extending the range if its symbolic meaning. A stanza like the following brings this out vividly.

Its slopes covered with the glow of ripened mangoes

And you, on the mountain peak, darkly shining like a glossy coil of hair

It will indeed attract the gaze of celestial lovers

Like a great breast of the earth, dark at the center, a golden gleam around

As the poem moves forward, it becomes apparent that the separation and re-union of the cloud and the mountain become emblematic of the relationship between the yaksha and his beloved.

Second, the question of time is important. The poet invokes time throughout the poem as a way of bringing solace to his protagonist. The demi-god has been banished for a year for dereliction of duty; eight months have gone by and four more remain. It is only a small fraction of time in comparison to the vast time scales alluded to in the poem. In this poem, time assumes diverse shapes. There is an intermingling of the past, future and present; there is constant reference to mythic and epic time, time as transcendental.

We have intimations of time beyond time. What this poetic and mythical discourse of time carefully evoked by the poet does in this elegy is to place the time of separation of the demi-god and his beloved in its proper consoling context; after all it is only a minute fraction of time. Therefore, it seems to me, the invocation of time is used by Kalidasa as a way of bring a sense of solace to his giving protagonist.

Third, the juxtaposition of the demi-god and the cloud serves to secure another form of solace. The yaksha has been banished for failing in his duties. He is overwhelmed by the anxieties and anguishes of separation from his beloved. He is portrayed as a person of passionate disposition – ‘kami.’ Because of his kindness, largesse, the desire to help others, he is associated with the traditional Indian cultural value of dutifulness (dharma).

According to traditional axiology, the demi-god has violated the norms of dharma while the cloud is an upholder of the dharma; however, the poet has sought to represent the cloud as the alter ego of the protagonist. What this does is to introduce the idea of supplement in the way that Derrida has glossed it – an extension and a replacement at the same time. Hence, the dharmic elements in his alter-ego’s character bring in the much needed consolation to the grieving protagonist.

Wonderful interplay

Fourth, there is a wonderful interplay of the ideas freedom and imprisonment in The Meghaduta, one of whose effects is to usher in the sense of solace that we have been discussing. The protagonist of the poem is imprisoned in Ramagiri; his freedom has been curtailed. On the other hand, the cloud is free to roam high above the sky observing vast stretches of land experiencing unfettered joy.. There is an interesting intersection of freedom and unfreedom here. Some of the lines in the poem capture the freedom of the cloud in glowing terms.

Listen, now, as I uncover a path suitable for your journey

O rain-giver, which you will follow, resting your feet

When tired, on a mountain, refreshed when exhausted

By the clear waters of streams, you will hear my message

The cloud is free to move along the pathways described by the demi-god, while he himself is condemned to immobility. At the same time, through his descriptions to the cloud, he can vicariously participate in the journey. Hence there is an interesting interplay between freedom represented by the cloud and the unfreedom represented by the demi-god. This is given a further layer of complexity when we realize that the poet has made the cloud into the alter ego of the demi-god.

Fifth the binaries of certainty and uncertainty that pervades the poetic text has a way of deepening the sense of solace. The plight of the yaksha calls attention to the uncertainty that characterizes mundane existence. At the same time, it is enveloped by a larger certainty that emerges from the religious symbolism in the poem. In this elegy we observe how desire legitimizes itself by signposting the religiously possible. This interplay can be seen at a number of different levels. For example the two cities of Alaka and Ramagiri are important; they represent the divine and the mundane.

Alaka, which is high up in the Himalayas has a divine aura about it; it is where semi-divine beings move freely and it is captured in terms of religious imagery. The Ramagiri, where the yaksha is condemned to lead his lonely existence is emblematic of the earthy. However, as the poem progresses we observe how there is a union of the divine and the mundane, the celestial and the earthy, foreshadowing the hoped-for union of the yaksha and his beloved.

The whole poem is bathed in religious imagery. The poet seems to be gesturing towards a higher reality that surpasses the tensions, anxieties, ambiguities of the worldly existence. The idea of divine law is a sub-text in the poem. What this does is to introduce a note of certainty to the poetic text. In other words a sense of certainty trumps the overt uncertainty precipitated by the banishment of the demi-god. Once gain this has the effect of bringing in a sense of consolation because one is convinced of the fact that there is a lager reality, solid and dependable, that exists beyond the temporary fluctuations of earthly life.

I have pointed to five aspects of the elegy which has the effect of ushering in a sense of solace. As we discussed the nature of the elegy as a poetic genre, we realized that this idea of consolation is crucial to this poetic genre; indeed, it manifests in diverse ways depending on cultural conventions of loss and mourning as well as poetic conventions of loss and melancholy that characterizes each society. In the case of Kalidasa’s The Meghaduta, the imprint of Indian culture and religiosity is clearly present in the poetic text. It is vitally connected to the meaning of this elegy. The reconstitution of the divine in the mundane is a defining trait of this elegy. The landscape of visibility, desire and memory that is featured in this poem has a clear religious frame.

Influential analyse

I would like to discuss this inter-animation of the divine and the mundane from another angle. One of the finest and most influential analyses of the concept of desire, in recent times, has been proposed by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychiatrist Felix Guattari. It is indeed true that they dissect the notion of desire in terms of capitalist modernity. However, there is a general principle embedded in their discussion that can be productively invoked for advancing our immediate purpose. Standardly, desire is seen as a lack and the struggle to meet that need. If one pauses to examine cutting-edge theorists like Jacque Lacan one would realize that this lack is at the heart of the concept of desire. Deleuze and Guattari see it differently; for them desire is productive, it is positive They make the point that one needs to draw a distinction between interest and desire – a distinction that, in my judgment, is central to understanding The Meghaduta.

Interest refers to the rational choices that one is compelled to make. And desire provides the larger discursive environment within which that interest could be pursued and fulfilled. This line of thinking, I submit, can be applied to the Meghaduta. The immediate interest of the yaksha is to unite with his young wife. However, Kalidasa develops the dynamics of this interest within the larger discursive context of desire, and that desire is closely connected to a religious imagination and cosmic understanding. Therefore, a Deluzian approach to this elegy can prove to be productive. I am not, of course, ignoring or downplaying the risks such a move would entail. But that is a risk worth taking in the quest for hermeneutic daring.

Some of the elegies that we discussed earlier were marked by a penchant for open-endedness with everything that it brings in its train The same bent of mind can be seen in The Meghaduta.

This poem is open-ended; we do not know whether the message was successfully delivered by the cloud to the beloved of the protagonist. In other words, we do not know whether the journey urged on by the yaksha ended in success or failure. In a sense that is not the point, as Kalidasa perceives it. His ambition is to probe the consciousness of a lovelorn husband against the background of a luscious natural world and the enframing presence of a religious and moral world. The poem says that there is indeed a spiritual destiny which needs to be reached that lies beyond the pulsations of the material world. The open-endedness that I referred to is a vital component of this argument.

The awareness of loss and the desire for retrieval find poignant articulation in different elegies in different forms. Clearly, in The Meghaduta this awareness bears the shape of its own distinctive ambitions.

This modulates the elegy’s internal disposition in complex ways. Kalidasa, in his elegy, reconfigures a living world in order to gesture towards a larger world beyond it. It is this conviction that gives this poem its indubitable power of resonance. In this regard, a comparison of Kalidasa’s elegy with those written by, say, Milton or Shelley that I discussed earlier should prove to be extremely instructive..

(To be continued)