14 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [X.S., XII, 



a distance and therefore with few rays only is looking lovely 

 like a virgin adorned on the forehead with pollened flowers 

 of (red) Bandhujlva (Pentapetes Phoenicia). 



56. Eyesight fails to pass upwards, downwards, side- 

 wards, frontwards and backwards. This world is living in the 

 night like an ovum in the (dark) ovary. 



57. Between the pure and the impure, the stationary 

 and the moving, the curved and the straight, all (differences) 

 have been obliterated by this darkness. Shame to the dark- 

 ness for removing the distinctions (between the good and the 



bad) ! 



63. The moon with its finger-like rays removing the 



(black) hair-like darkness from the bud-like (shut) lotus eyes 



is, as it were, kissing the (beloved) night. 



Sufficient facts have now been adduced, and they fairly 



prove that the eighth canto formed 



The ston e in MSB "" 8 " P art of the ori g inal P oem - Why then 



has it been omitted from most manu- 

 scripts ? Its disappearance is, I think, due to the subject 

 selected. The amorous dalliance of the Divine Being and His 

 consort, described like the dalliance of an ordinary human lover 

 and his mistress, shocked the religious instincts. Unlike Vaisna- 

 vism that permitted such amorous descriptions, Saivism and 

 Saktism were more strict and stern. The Saiva rhetoricians 

 condemned such descriptions directly and indirectly; and their 

 condemnation was followed by the gradual dropping of the canto 

 from ordinary manuscripts. Finally we see the disappearance 

 attributed to a curse of the goddess Parvatl. 



I conclude this paper with a discussion of the question 

 „. ,, t as to the position of the eighth canto 



Xinth to seventeenth . , u ^ ~-2*;„i ^^™. wj^^-a. sa. i a. 



cantos spurious. m the anginal poem. Was it tne last 



canto, or was it followed by nine other 

 cantos as now alleged ? On this point the following facts 

 are worth noticing. Firstly, the cantos nine to seventeen ap- 

 pear in extremely few manuscripts, mostly very recent manu- 

 scripts. Secondly, they were not commented upon or recog- 

 nised by any of the older commentators like Vallabha or 

 by any reliable critics like Mallinatha. Thirdly, neither the 

 cantos generally nor any of their verses particularly have 

 been quoted or referred to in rhetorical or other works. Fourth- 

 ly, the verses are unequal in merit, and generally speaking 

 do not run up to the high standard of excellence set up 

 in the first eight cantos or in the other poems of Kalidasa. 

 The power is perceptibly less ; and the similes, the great charac- 

 teristic of the poet, much fewer and less appropriate. Fifthly, 

 these cantos describe the growth of the Kumara, his fight 

 with the demon Tripura and his followers, and his destruction 

 of them. These subject-matters disagree with the title of 

 the poem which is expected to describe only the events leading 



