362 



Prannath Pandit— Morals of Kalidasa. 



[No. 3, 



mitage the exiled BUd had taken shelter, and given birth to the twins, Kusha 

 axALava* Kusha, true to the traditions of his race, looks first to the 

 education o£ his son in the royal sciences, and then to his marriage. f 



Filial duties.— The children on their part are not wanting in the 

 reverential love and grateful requital which is expected at their hands. As 

 the state of society which Kalidasa contemplates, provided for the retreat 

 of householders into the forest when they had passed the third stage of 

 their life, J the requital is limited to cheerful obedience. 



Eaghu, when in the bloom of youth he exceeded his father in 

 stature and physical strength, looked shorter on account of his meekness. § 

 When in his old age, the same monarch wishes to abdicate the throne in 

 favour of his son Aja and retire, according to the family custom, to the 

 contemplative shades of the primeval forest, the latter falls at his feet and 

 passionately entreats him not to forsake his son.|| At last, a compromise is 

 effected by the hoary monarch's consenting to spend the remaining portion 

 of his life in a retired grove near the capital.^" When he had breathed his 

 last, Aja is assiduous in the performance of the proper obsequies, as a mark 

 of respect for the deceased, though he knew full well that souls which had 

 obtained final emancipation, are above the reach of such offerings.** 



When the kingdom had been offered by his father to Aja, the king- 

 dom which princes desire to possess even through the means of the deepest 

 crimes, Aja consents to accept it, not through any lust for dominion, but 

 out of a deep sense of the obedience due to a father's commands,ff and to this 

 the modest refusal of Ayush in the fifth act of the Vikramorvashi furnishes a 

 parallel. When the infants Mama and Lakshmana are directed by Dasara- 

 tha to accompany the sage Vishwdmitra for the purpose of encountering the 

 ferocious monsters who interfered with the celebration of Vedic rites, they 

 have no excuse to make, no delay to solicit, but are instantly ready to start. %% 

 The cheerfulness with which Rama obeyed the mandate of his father to 

 resign the throne and wander forth an exile for fourteen years in the path- 

 less wilds of Danda~kd,% § is too well known to require any detailed description. 

 The filial obedience ol Par ashurdma we leave casuists to analyse and explain. || j[ 



* Eaghu., XV. 13, 32, 33. 



f Eaghu., XVII. 3. 



% Eaghu., VIII. 11. 



§ Eaghu., III. 34. 



H Eaghu., VIII. 12. 



IT Eaghu., VIII. 13, 14. 

 ** Eaghu., VIII. 25, 26. 

 ft Eaghu., VIII. 2. 

 XX Eaghu., XI. 1—4. 

 §§ Eaghu., XII. 7—9. 

 Illl Eaghu., XL 65. 





I 



