1876.] 



Prannath Pandit — Morals of Kdlid&sa. 



859 



Fidelity— The moral value of the system of marriage, as has been 

 justly observed, lies in the discipline to which it puts the strongest instinct 

 in our animal nature, while at the same time satisfying it. To reap the 

 full effects of this moral discipline, conjugal love must be not only strong 

 but constant. Aja never marries after the tragic death of his beloved 

 Indumati.* When the fair sister of Havana makes a delicate proposal to 

 Rama, the latter pleads as an excuse that he is married, f When the clamor 

 of the populace compelled him to send into exile his beloved Sitd, he could 

 not exile her from his heart. J Bam a is a staunch monogamist at heart, 

 and when the ordinances of religion made it imperative, that he should 

 have a partner by his side when performing sacrificial rites, his only com- 

 panion was a golden image of the exiled Sztd.§ His son, Kusa, who trod 

 in his footsteps, proudly assures a female apparition that had mysteriously 

 found access to his chamber at dead of night, that the well-governed mind& 

 of Uaghu's race have no predilection for the wives of others. \\ 



Polygamy. — This brings us to the kindred subject of Polygamy. 

 That this practice was prevalent among the kings and the aristocracy will 

 not admit of dispute, and perhaps the greater fidelity to nature expected of 

 a dramatist may account for its mention in the dramas. But it is note- 

 worthy that it is never prominently brought forward in the poems, except 

 in the case of the wives of Dasaratha. These are only three in number, 

 and not ten thousand. The fact was one too prominent to be safely 

 suppressed and indispensable to the plot of the story, and indeed it may be 

 pleaded as an excuse that the tragic end of the monarch, and th^ exile of his 

 eldest son, illustrate very well the evil effects of Polygamy. The greatest 

 of our poet's heroes are either monogamists or may be taken to be so for all 

 the purposes of his epic narrative. ' Mayest thou gain the undivided love of 

 thy husband '% is the blessing that is pronounced over TJmd when her bridal 

 toilette is finished, and throughout the seven cantos of the Kumara Sam- 

 bhava there is no mention of the co-wifehood of Gangd, though that was 

 well-known to Kalidasa.** 



Obedience.— "The natural subordination of the woman, which has 

 reappeared under all forms of marriage" ft fin <l s expression in the conjugal 



* Eaghu., VIII. 92—95. 



t Eaghu., XII. 34. 



% Eaghu., XIV. 84. 



§ Eaghu., XIV. 87. XV. 61. 



II ^t^t w Iftrt Kwi\ ^ vi^wareffP ' Ea s hu - XVL 8 ^ 



1" ^f%rf 5?T ^TW XfcS? I Kumiira Sambhava, VII. 28. 

 ** Purvamegha, 51. 



tt Comte's Positive Philosophy, Vol. II., p. 135. 

 x x 





