Reflections on Gandhi

Eric Blair, (June 25, 1903-January 21 1950) also known as George Orwell, was a writer of great perspicacity: his prose was clear and easy to read. He was an opponent of injustice and totalitarian societies. His masterwork,  "1984," was an amazingly prophetic understanding of thought control, propaganda, and thought police, and a critique of doublespeak, the euphemisms we employ to avoid truth. 

Our modern thought police appear in apparently benign forms, like  Google, Facebook, emails and other forms of electronic data that allow government agencies to know exactly what we are thinking at any given point in time. Orwell's telescreen kept the citizens of 1984 under a constant eye as do modern surveillance programs. 

Orwell was an astute political observer as well, as seen in Animal Farm, a criticism of the corruption of the ideals of socialism evident in the failed state of Stalin's Soviet Union as well as the internecine conflicts of the Spanish Civil War. He has mixed emotions about Gandhi.

George Orwell

Reflections on Gandhi

by George Orwell

Partisan Review, January 1949

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent, but the tests that have to be applied to them are not, of course, the same in all cases. In Gandhi's case the questions one feels inclined to ask are: to what extent was Gandhi moved by vanity—by the consciousness of himself as a humble, naked old man, sitting on a praying-mat and shaking empires by sheer spiritual power—and to what extent did he compromise his own principles by entering into politics, which of their nature are inseparable from coercion and fraud? To give a definite answer one would have to study Gandhi's acts and writings in immense detail, for his whole life was a sort of pilgrimage in which every act was significant. But this partial autobiography,^* which ends in the nineteen-twenties, is strong evidence in his favor, all the more because it covers what he would have called the unregenerate part of his life and reminds one that inside the saint, or near-saint, there was a very shrewd, able person who could, if he had chosen, have been a brilliant success as a lawyer, an administrator or perhaps even a business man.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

At about the time when the autobiography first appeared I remember reading its opening chapters in the ill-printed pages of some Indian newspaper. They made a good impression on me, which Gandhi himself, at that time, did not. The things that one associated with him—homespun cloth, "soul forces" and vegetarianism—were unappealing, and his medievalist program was obviously not viable in a backward, starving, over-populated country. It was also apparent that the British were making use of him, or thought they were making use of him. Strictly speaking, as a Nationalist, he was an enemy, but since in every crisis he would exert himself to prevent violence—which, from the British point of view, meant preventing any effective action whatever—he could be regarded as "our man."

Gandhi spinning

In private this was sometimes cynically admitted. The attitude of the Indian millionaires was similar. Gandhi called upon them to repent, and naturally they preferred him to the Socialists and Communists who, given the chance, would actually have taken their money away. How reliable such calculations are in the long run is doubtful; as Gandhi himself says, "in the end deceivers deceive only themselves"; but at any rate the gentleness with which he was nearly always handled was due partly to the feeling that he was useful. The British Conservatives only became really angry with him when, as in 1942, he was in effect turning his non-violence against a different conqueror.

But I could see even then that the British officials who spoke of him with a mixture of amusement and disapproval also genuinely liked and admired him, after a fashion. Nobody ever suggested that he was corrupt, or ambitious in any vulgar way, or that anything he did was actuated by fear or malice. In judging a man like Gandhi one seems instinctively to apply high standards, so that some of his virtues have passed almost unnoticed.

Naturam Godse, left with pistol, Gandhi right.

For instance, it is clear even from the autobiography that his natural physical courage was quite outstanding: the manner of his death was a later illustration of this, for a public man who attached any value to his own skin would have been more adequately guarded.



Again, he seems to have been quite free from that maniacal suspiciousness which, as E. M. Forster rightly says in A Passage to India, is the besetting Indian vice, as hypocrisy is the British vice. Although no doubt he was shrewd enough in detecting dishonesty, he seems wherever possible to have believed that other people were acting in good faith and had a better nature through which they could be approached. And though he came of a poor middle-class family, started life rather unfavorably, and was probably of unimpressive physical appearance, he was not afflicted by envy or by the feeling of inferiority. Color feeling, when he first met it in its worst form in South Africa, seems rather to have astonished him. Even when he was fighting what was in effect a color war, he did not think of people in terms of race or status. The governor of a province, a cotton millionaire, a half-starved Dravidian cooly, a British private soldier, were all equally human beings, to be approached in much the same way. It is noticeable that even in the worst possible circumstances, as in South Africa when he was making himself unpopular as the champion of the Indian community, he did not lack European friends.

Written in short lengths for newspaper serialization, the autobiography is not a literary masterpiece, but it is the more impressive because of the commonplaceness of much of its material. It is well to be reminded that Gandhi started out with the normal ambitions of a young Indian student and only adopted his extremist opinions by degrees and, in some cases, rather unwillingly. There was a time, it is interesting to learn, when he wore a top hat, took dancing lessons, studied French and Latin, went up the Eiffel Tower and even tried to learn the violin—all this with the idea of assimilating European civilization as thoroughly as possible.

He was not one of those saints who are marked out by their phenomenal piety from childhood onwards, nor one of the other kind who forsake the world after sensational debaucheries. He makes full confession of the misdeeds of his youth, but in fact there is not much to confess. As a frontispiece to the book there is a photograph of Gandhi's possessions at the time of his death. The whole outfit could be purchased for about £5, and Gandhi's sins, at least his fleshly sins, would make the same sort of appearance if placed all in one heap. A few cigarettes, a few mouthfuls of meat, a few annas pilfered in childhood from the maidservant, two visits to a brothel (on each occasion he got away without "doing anything"), one narrowly escaped lapse with his landlady in Plymouth, one outburst of temper—that is about the whole collection. Almost from childhood onwards he had a deep earnestness, an attitude ethical rather than religious, but, until he was about thirty, no very definite sense of direction. His first entry into anything describable as public life was made by way of vegetarianism. Underneath his less ordinary qualities one feels all the time the solid middle-class business men who were his ancestors. One feels that even after he had abandoned personal ambition he must have been a resourceful, energetic lawyer and a hardheaded political organizer, careful in keeping down expenses, an adroit handler of committees and an indefatigable chaser of subscriptions. His character was an extraordinarily mixed one, but there was almost nothing in it that you can put your finger on and call bad, and I believe that even Gandhi's worst enemies would admit that he was an interesting and unusual man who enriched the world simply by being alive. Whether he was also a lovable man, and whether his teachings can have much value for those who do not accept the religious beliefs on which they are founded, I have never felt fully certain.

Of late years it has been the fashion to talk about Gandhi as though he were not only sympathetic to the Western leftwing movement, but were even integrally part of it. Anarchists and pacifists, in particular, have claimed him for their own, noticing only that he was opposed to centralism and State violence and ignoring the otherworldly, anti-humanist tendency of his doctrines. But one should, I think, realize that Gandhi's teachings cannot be squared with the belief that Man is the measure of all things, and that our job is to make life worth living on this earth, which is the only earth we have. They make sense only on the assumption that God exists and that the world of solid objects is an illusion to be escaped from. It is worth considering the disciplines which Gandhi imposed on himself and which—though he might not insist on every one of his followers observing every detail—he considered indispensable if one wanted to serve either God or humanity. First of all, no meat-eating, and if possible no animal food in any form. (Gandhi himself, for the sake of his health, had to compromise on milk, but seems to have felt this to be a backsliding.)
No alcohol or tobacco, and no spices or condiments, even of a vegetable kind, since food should be taken not for its own sake but solely in order to preserve one's strength. Secondly, if possible, no sexual intercourse. If sexual intercourse must happen, then it should be for the sole purpose of begetting children and presumably at long intervals. Gandhi himself, in his middle thirties, took the vow of bramahcharya, which means not only complete chastity but the elimination of sexual desire. This condition, it seems, is difficult to attain without a special diet and frequent fasting. One of the dangers of milk-drinking is that it is apt to arouse sexual desire. And finally—this is the cardinal point—for the seeker after goodness there must be no close friendships and no exclusive loves whatever.

Close friendships, Gandhi says, are dangerous, because "friends react on one another" and through loyalty to a friend one can be led into wrong-doing. This is unquestionably true. Moreover, if one is to love God, or to love humanity as a whole, one cannot give one's preference to any individual person. This again is true, and it marks the point at which the humanistic and the religious attitude cease to be reconcilable. To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

with Nehru

This attitude is perhaps a noble one, but, in the sense which—I think—most people would give to the word, it is inhuman. The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals. No doubt alcohol, tobacco and so forth are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid. There is an obvious retort to this, but one should be wary about making it. In this yogi-ridden age, it is too readily assumed that "non-attachment" is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "nonattachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the other-worldly or the humanistic ideal is "higher." The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all "radicals" and "progressives," from the mildest Liberal to the most extreme Anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.

Spinning cloth

However, Gandhi's pacifism can be separated to some extent from his other teachings. Its motive was religious, but he claimed also for it that it was a definite technique, a method, capable of producing desired political results. Gandhi's attitude was not that of most Western pacifists. Satyagraha, first evolved in South Africa, was a sort of non-violent warfare, a way of defeating the enemy without hurting him and without feeling or arousing hatred. It entailed such things as civil disobedience, strikes, lying down in front of railway trains, enduring police charges without running away and without hitting back, and the like. Gandhi objected to "passive resistance" as a translation of Satyagraha: in Gujarati, it seems, the word means "firmness in the truth." In his early days Gandhi served as a stretcher-bearer on the British side in the Boer War, and he was prepared to do the same again in the war of 1914—18. Even after he had completely abjured violence he was honest enough to see that in war it is usually necessary to take sides. He did not—indeed, since his whole political life centered round a struggle for national independence, he could not—take the sterile and dishonest line of pretending that in every war both sides are exactly the same and it makes no difference who wins. Nor did he, like most Western pacifists, specialize in avoiding awkward questions. In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: "What about the Jews? Are you prepared to see them exterminated? If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war?" I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the "you're another" type. But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer's Gandhi and Stalin. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi's view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence." After the war he justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly. One has the impression that this attitude staggered even so warm an admirer as Mr. Fischer, but Gandhi was merely being honest. If you are not prepared to take life, you must often be prepared for lives to be lost in some other way. When, in 1942, he urged non-violent resistance against a Japanese invasion, he was ready to admit that it might cost several million deaths.

At the same time there is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity. As can be seen from the phrase quoted above, he believed in "arousing the world," which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing. It is difficult to see how Gandhi's methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing? The Russian masses could only practice civil disobedience if the same idea happened to occur to all of them simultaneously, and even then, to judge by the history of the Ukraine famine, it would make no difference. But let it be granted that non-violent resistance can be effective against one's own government, or against an occupying power: even so, how does one put it into practice internationally? Gandhi's various conflicting statements on the late war seem to show that he felt the difficulty of this. Applied to foreign politics, pacifism either stops being pacifist or becomes appeasement. Moreover the assumption, which served Gandhi so well in dealing with individuals, that all human beings are more or less approachable and will respond to a generous gesture, needs to be seriously questioned. It is not necessarily true, for example, when you are dealing with lunatics. Then the question becomes: Who is sane? Was Hitler sane? And is it not possible for one whole culture to be insane by the standards of another? And, so far as one can gauge the feelings of whole nations, is there any apparent connection between a generous deed and a friendly response? Is gratitude a factor in international politics?

These and kindred questions need discussion, and need it urgently, in the few years left to us before somebody presses the button and the rockets begin to fly. It seems doubtful whether civilization can stand another major war, and it is at least thinkable that the way out lies through non-violence. It is Gandhi's virtue that he would have been ready to give honest consideration to the kind of question that I have raised above; and, indeed, he probably did discuss most of these questions somewhere or other in his innumerable newspaper articles. One feels of him that there was much that he did not understand, but not that there was anything that he was frightened of saying or thinking. I have never been able to feel much liking for Gandhi, but I do not feel sure that as a political thinker he was wrong in the main, nor do I believe that his life was a failure. It is curious that when he was assassinated, many of his warmest admirers exclaimed sorrowfully that he had lived just long enough to see his life work in ruins, because India was engaged in a civil war which had always been foreseen as one of the by-products of the transfer of power. But it was not in trying to smoothe down Hindu-Moslem rivalry that Gandhi had spent his life. His main political objective, the peaceful ending of British rule, had after all been attained. As usual, the relevant facts cut across one another. On the one hand, the British did get out of India without fighting, an event which very few observers indeed would have predicted until about a year before it happened. On the other hand, this was done by a Labor government, and it is certain that a Conservative government, especially a government headed by Churchill, would have acted differently. But if, by 1945, there had grown up in Britain a large body of opinion sympathetic to Indian independence, how far was this due to Gandhi's personal influence? And if, as may happen, India and Britain finally settle down into a decent and friendly relationship, will this be partly because Gandhi, by keeping up his struggle obstinately and without hatred, disinfected the political air? That one even thinks of asking such questions indicates his stature. One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic distaste for Gandhi, one may reject the claims of sainthood made on his behalf (he never made any such claim himself, by the way), one may also reject sainthood as an ideal and therefore feel that Gandhi's basic aims were anti-human and reactionary: but regarded simply as a politician, and compared with the other leading political figures of our time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave behind!

For an exercise in comparative reading, here's a little homework: check out this letter from Srila Prabhupada to Gandhi. See where Prabhupada and Orwell agree and disagree.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (pre-sannyasa Abhay Charan De, seated left, with family)

Letter to: Mahatma Gandhi —Cawnpore 12 July, 1947 47-07-12 Mahatma Gandhijee Bhangi Colony New Delhi. Dear Friend Mahatmajee, Please accept my respectful Namaskar. I am your unknown friend but I had to write to you at times and again although you never cared to reply them. I sent you my papers "Back to Godhead" but your secretaries told me that you have very little time to read the letters and much less for reading the magazines. I asked for an interview with you but your busy secretaries never cared to reply this. Anyway as I am your very old friend although unknown to you I am again writing to you in order to bring you to the rightful position deserved by you. As a sincere friend I must not deviate from my duty towards a friend like your good self. I tell you as a sincere friend that you must immediately retire from active politics if you do not desire to die an inglorious death. You have 125 years to live as you have desired to live but you if you die an inglorious death it is no worth. The honour and prestige that you have obtained during the course of you present life time, were not possible to be obtained by any one else within the living memory. But you must know that all these honours and prestiges were false in as much as they were created by the Illusory Energy of Godhead called the maya. By this falsity I do not mean to say that your so many friends were false to you nor you were false to them. By this falsity I mean illusion or in other words the false friendship and honours obtained thereby were but creation of maya and therefore they are always temporary or false as you may call it. But none of you neither your friends nor yourself knew this truth. Now by the Grace of God that illusion is going to be cleared and thus your faithful friends like AcaryaKripalini and others are accusing you for your inability at the present moment to give them any practical programme of work as you happened to give them during your glorious days of non-co-operation movement. So you are also in a plight to find out a proper solution for the present political tangle created by your opponents. You should therefore take a note of warning from your insignificant friend like me, that unless you retire timely from politics and engage yourself cent per cent in the preaching work ofBhagavad-gita, which is the real function of the Mahatmas, you shall have to meet with such inglorious deaths as Mussolini, Hitlers, Tojos, Churchills or Lloyd Georges met with. You can very easily understand as to how some of your political enemies in the garb of friends (both Indian and English) have deliberately cheated you and have broken your heart by doing the same mischief for which you have struggled so hard for so many years. You wanted chiefly Hindu-Moslem unity in India and they have tactfully managed to undo your work, by creation of the Pakistan and India separately. You wanted freedom for India but they have given permanent dependence of India. You wanted to do something for the upliftment of the position of the bhangis but they are still rotting as bhangis even though you are living in the bhangi colony. They are all therefore illusions and when these things will be presented to you as they are, you must consider them as God-sent. God has favored you by dissipating the illusion you were hovering in, and by the same illusion you were, nursing those ideas as Truth(?). You must know that you are in the relative world which is called by the sages as Dvaita i.e. dual- and nothing is absolute here. Your Ahimsa is always followed by Himsa as the light is followed by darkness or the father is followed by the son. Nothing is absolute truth in this dual world. You did not know this neither you ever cared to know this from the right sources and therefore all your attempts to create unity were followed by disunity and Ahimsa. Ahimsa was followed by Himsa. But it is better late than never. You must know now something about the Absolute Truth. The Truth with which you have been experimenting so long is relative. The relative truths are creations of the daivimaya qualified by the three modes of Nature. They are all insurmountable as is explained in theBhagavad-gita (7.14). The Absolute Truth is the Absolute Godhead. In the Katha Upanisad it is ordered that one must approach the bona fide Guru who is not only well versed in all the scriptures of the world but is also the realized soul in Brahman the Absolute—in order to learn the science of Absolute Truth. So also it is instructed in the Bhagavad-gita as follows:— tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya upadeksyanti tad jnanam jnaninas tattvadarsinah (Bg. 4.34) But I know that you never underwent such transcendental training except some severe penances which you invented for your purpose as you have invented so many things in the course of experimenting with the relative truths. You might have easily avoided them if you had approached the Guru as abovementioned. But your sincere efforts to attain some Godly qualities by austerities etc surely have raised you to some higher position which you can better utilize for the purpose of the Absolute Truth. If you, however, remain satisfied with such temporary position only and do not try to know the Absolute Truth, then surely you are to fall down from the artificially exalted position under the laws of Nature. But if you really want to approach the Absolute Truth and want to do some real good to the people in general all over the world, which shall include your ideas of unity, peace and non-violence, then you must give up the rotten politics immediately and rise up for the preaching work of the philosophy and religion of "Bhagavad-gita'' without offering unnecessary and dogmatic interpretations on them. I had occasionally discussed this subject in my paper "Back to Godhead'' and a leaf from the same is enclosed herewith for your reference. I would only request you to retire from politics at least for a month only and let us have discussion on the Bhagavad-gita. I am sure, thereby, that you shall get a new light from the result of such discussions not only for your benefit but for the benefit of the world at large—as I know that you are sincere, honest and moralist. Awaiting your early reply with interest. Yours sincerely, Abhay Charan De. Enclosure—one leaf from Back to Godhead

Vida de Kalidas: Comentario

Shakuntala Comentario Parte I

Vida  de Kalidasa, y diferencias entre  Mahābharata y  Kali Dasa en la historia de Shakuntala.

La historia de Shakuntala, la madre de Bharata y de India se encuentra en el primer libro del vasto poema épico Mahābharata. La historia tiene su sitio natural ahí, pues Bharata, el hijo de Shakuntala, es el ancestro común de los príncipes que toman parte en la epopeya. Las diferencias entre las versiones de Kali Dasa y el Mahābharata es importante porque revelan algo acerca del proceso del arte, la poesía, y la cultura de India al igual que habla del cómo se desarrollan las tradiciones. Estoy en deuda con la traducción de Shakuntala de Arthur Ryder que es del dominio público y con la que se puede jugar para hacer una hermosa adaptación, pero vale la pena echar un vistazo hacia la visión biográfica del poeta, así como a su breve explicación de las diferencias entre ambas versiones. Aquí las reproduzco. (Michael Dolan)

Kalidas—Su Vida y Escritos

Por Arthur Ryder, de Shakuntala y otras traducciones

I

Kalidasa vivió probablemente en el siglo quinto de la era cristiana. Esta fecha, aproximada como es, ha de tomarse con sumo recelo, y no es en modo alguno precisa. No hay ningún dato biográfico preciso que se conserve acerca del autor, quien sin embargo gozó de una gran popularidad durante su vida, y a quien los Hindúes le han reconocido siempre como el más grande poeta Sánscrito. Estamos por ello enfrentados con uno de los problemas recurrentes de la historia de la literatura. Puesto que nuestra ignorancia no se debe a la negligencia hacia los escritos de Kalidasa a manos de sus compatriotas, sino a su singular ceguera hacia el interés y la importancia del hecho histórico. 

Ninguna nación Europea puede compararse con la devoción crítica India hacia su propia literatura. Durante un periodo que no se cuenta por siglos sino por milenios, la India ha producido una línea ininterrumpida de sabios desinteresados dedicados a la perpetuación y la exégesis de las obras maestras nativas. Ediciones, opiniones, abundancia de comentarios; los poetas que buscan la frase exacta de agradecimiento a sus predecesores: sin embargo, cuando intentamos reconstruir la vida del más grande poeta, no tenemos material, salvo algunas leyendas tentadoras, y los escasos datos que podemos deducir de los escritos de un hombre que apenas se menciona a sí mismo.

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Una de estas leyendas merece ser recontada por su interés intrínseco, aunque no contiene, hasta donde podemos ver, ni un grano de verdad histórica, y a pesar de que sitúa a Kalidasa en Benares, a quinientas millas de distancia de la única ciudad en que se tiene la certeza de que pasó algún tiempo de su vida. De acuerdo con esta recopilación, Kalidasa era un niño Brahmán. A los seis meses de edad, fue abandonado en un orfanato y fue adoptado por un boyero. Creció hasta la madures sin una educación formal, sin embargo sus maneras eran notablemente hermosas y llenas de gracia. Y ocurrió que la Princesa de Benares era muy anticuada, rechazó a un pretendiente tras otro, entre ellos al consejero de su padre, porque no lograban llegar a su nivel de estudios y poesía. 

El consejero rechazado planeó una cruel venganza. Tomó al apuesto boyero de las calles, y le dio las vestimentas de un sabio y un séquito de doctores eruditos, y lo presentó ante la princesa, después de advertirle a él que no abriera la boca bajo ninguna circunstancia. La princesa estaba conmovida por la belleza y la conclusión en su alma pedante acerca de su silencio obstinado, que le pareció a ella, como de hecho lo fue, la evidencia de una sabiduría profunda. Ella deseaba desposar a Kalidasa, y juntos fueron al templo. 

Pero no bien empezaba la ceremonia cuando Kalidasa percibió la imagen de un toro. Su entrenamiento previo era predominante en él; el secreto surgió, y la novia estaba furiosa. Pero cedió ante las súplicas de Kalidasa, y le aconsejó que orara por conocimiento y poesía a la diosa Kali. La oración fue respondida; educación y poder poético descendieron milagrosamente  a morar con el joven boyero, quien en agradecimiento tomó el nombre de Kalidasa, siervo de Kali.

Sintió que le debía todo el feliz cambio en su naturaleza a su princesa, juró siempre tratarla como a su maestra, con respeto profundo y sin familiaridad. Esto fue más de lo que la mujer esperaba; estallo en ira y maldijo a Kalidasa a que muriera a manos de una mujer. Más adelante, continúa la historia, la maldición se cumple. Cierto rey escribió media estrofa de un verso, y ofreció una amplia recompensa al poeta que pudiera completarla cabalmente. Kalidasa completó la estrofa sin dificultad; pero una mujer a quien amaba descubrió las líneas, y por avaricia de la recompensa, le mató.

Otra leyenda presenta a Kalidasa ocupado en una peregrinación hacia un santuario de Vishnu, en compañía de dos famosos escritores, Bhavabhuti y Dandin. Sin embargo otros retratan a Bhavabhuti como contemporáneo a Kalidasa, y celoso de la reputación del poeta menos austero. Estas historias han de ser falsas, pues es un hecho que los tres autores no fueron contemporáneos, aun así muestran un verdadero instinto hacia la creencia de que el genio sigue al genio, y que rara vez está aislado.

Esta creencia instintiva se aplica cuando las historias conectan a Kalidasa con el Rey Vikramaditya y las figuras literarias de su corte. 

Se ha exagerado, sin duda, y en parte se han falsificado los hechos; sin embargo, no podemos dudar de que algo de verdad haya en estas tradiciones, aunque tardío, y será tarea imposible separar la verdad de la fantasía. De este modo estamos en terreno más firme.

El Rey Vikramaditya gobernó la ciudad de Ujjainm, en el occidente central de India. Tuvo poder en la guerra y en la paz, ganó una gloria especial en una victoria sobre los barbaros que presionaban a  India a través de los pasos del Norte. A pesar de que no se ha probado la posibilidad de identificar a este monarca de entre otros gobernantes conocidos, no hay duda de que existió y que tuvo el carácter que se le atribuye. 

El nombre Vikramaditya- Sol del Valor, tal vez no es un nombre propio, sino un título como Faraón o Zar. No hay duda de que Kalidasa intentara dar tributo a su patrón, en el Sol del Valor, en el propio título de su obra, Urvashi gana con Valor.

El Rey Vikramaditya era un gran patrón del conocimiento y la poesía. Ujjain durante su gobierno fue la capital más brillante del mundo, no ha perdido hasta hoy todo el lustre otorgado por su espléndida corte. Entre los hombres eminentes reunidos ahí, nueve fueron particularmente distinguidos y son llamados “las nueve gemas.” Algunos de las nueve gemas fueron poetas, otros representaron las ciencias---astronomía, medicina, lexicografía. 

Parece cierto que los detalles de la tradición tardía concerniente a las nueve gemas está abierto a la suposición, sin embargo el hecho central no tiene dudas: de que en ese tiempo en ese lugar, hubo una gran aceleración de la mente humana, un impulso artístico que creo obras que no han podido perecer. Ujjain en los días de Vikramaditya se sitúa mundialmente junto a Atenas, Roma, Florencia, y Londres en sus grandes siglos. Aquí está el hecho substancial tras la a veces ridiculizada teoría de Max Müller acerca del renacimiento de la literatura Sánscrita. Es un poco falso el suponer, como algunos parecen hacer, que esta teoría ha sido invalidada por el descubrimiento de ciertas producciones literarias que anteceden a Kalidasa. Se pudiera incluso decir que estas excepcionales y felices centurias que vieron a un hombre tan grande como Homero o Virgilio o Kalidasa o Shakespeare, comparten a un hombre del renacimiento.

Es interesante observar que los siglos de oscuridad intelectual en Europa coinciden con los siglos de la luz en India. Los Vedas se compusieron en su mayor parte antes que Homero; Kalidas y sus contemporáneos vivieron mientras Roma se tambaleaba ante los asaltos de los bárbaros.

A los escasos e inciertos datos de las tradiciones tardías se puede añadir un poco de información sobre la vida de Kalidasa a través de sus propios escritos. Sólo menciona su nombre en los prólogos a sus tres obras de teatro, y lo hace con una modestia sin duda encantadora, incluso tentadora. Que ya desearía uno para el exceso que comunican algunos de los poetas indios. 

Sólo habla en primera persona en una ocasión, en los versos de introducción a su poema épico La Dinastía de Raghu (1) Aquí también percibimos su modestia y nos frustramos de obtener detalles de su vida.

Sabemos por los escritos de Kalidasa que pasó al menos parte de su vida en la ciudad de Ujjain. Se refiere a Ujjain más de una vez, y de una manera en que difícilmente lo haría quien no conoce y ama la ciudad. Especialmente en su poema El Mensajero de la Nube en donde mora en los encantos de la ciudad, e incluso invita a la nube a desviarse en su largo viaje para que no pierda la ocasión de conocerla.

Más adelante sabremos que Kalidasa viajó extensamente por la India. El cuarto canto de la Dinastía de Raghu describe un viaje alrededor de toda India incluso hacia regiones que están más allá de las fronteras que restringen los límites de India. Es difícil creer que el propio Kalidasa no hiciera ese “gran viaje”; mucho de verdad ha de haber en la tradición que le envía en peregrinaje hacia el Sureste de India. 

El canto decimotercero de la misma epopeya y El Mensajero de la Nube también describen largos viajes a través de India, en su mayoría hacia regiones lejanas de Ujjain. Son las montañas lo que le impresiona más profundamente. Sus trabajos están repletos de los Himalayas. Aparte de su primer drama y el pequeño poema llamado Las Estaciones, no hay ninguna obra suya en la que no se perciba el aroma de las montañas. 

En uno, El Pájaro del Dios de la Guerra, podría decirse que es todo montañas. No fue la grandeza sublime del Himalaya lo único que le atrajo; pues, como buen crítico hindú su visión es aguda, es el único poeta que describe cierta flor que crece en cachemira. El mar le interesaba menos. Para él, como lo es para la mayoría de los hindúes, el océano es un límite hermoso y terrible, sin carretera a la aventura. “La tierra cinchada por el mar” en la que Kalidasa habla de lo que el continente de India significa para él.

Otra conclusión derivada de los escritos de Kalidasa que puede ser cierta es la de que él era un hombre profundo y de educación extensa. No era de hecho un prodigio de erudición, como Bhavabhuti en su propio país o Milton en Inglaterra, sin embargo ningún hombre puede escribir como él lo hizo sin un estudio fuerte e inteligente. Para empezar. Tenía un conocimiento preciso y minucioso de la lengua sánscrita, en un momento en que el sánscrito era hasta cierto punto una lengua artificiosa. 

A veces se presiona mucho sobre este punto, como si los escritores de la época clásica de India compusieran en idioma extranjero.  Cada escritor, especialmente todo poeta, aunque componga en cualquier lengua, escribe en lo que puede llamarse un idioma extranjero; es decir, que no escribe como habla. Sin embargo, la brecha entre la lengua escrita y la lengua vernácula era mucho más amplia en la época de Kalidasa de lo que ha sido siempre. Los hindúes consideran que estudiar doce años lo que ellos llaman “el jefe de todas las ciencias, la ciencia de la gramática” es un requisito para poder dominarla. 

De que Kalidasa haya dominado esta ciencia son testigos abundantes sus obras.

Dominaba ambas las obras de retórica y la teoría dramática- asignatura que los sabios hindúes han tratado con mucho, en ocasiones sutil, ingenio. Los sistemas profundos y sutiles de la filosofía también fueron dominados por Kalidasa, y tenía algo de conocimiento de la astronomía y la ley.

Pero no era sólo de los libros escritos lo que Kalidasa leía a profundidad. Rara vez un hombre ha caminado la tierra y observado los fenómenos de la naturaleza viviente con tanto cuidado como él, pensaba que su precisión era precisamente la de un poeta, no la de un científico. Mucho se ha perdido para nosotros de lo que creció acerca de otros animales y plantas; sin embargo, podemos apreciar su “pelo negro de abejorro” su árbol ashoka que “arroja sus flores en una lluvia de lágrimas”, su río que llevaba un velo de niebla sombría.

Aunque sus cañas parecían manos que agarraban su vestido para ocultar sus encantos; es su imagen de un lirio diurno que florece al atardecer:

El lirio de agua se cierra, pero con resistencia maravillosa, como si le costar cerrar su puerta que da bienvenida a las abejas.

La religión de cualquier gran poeta siempre es un asunto de interés, especialmente la religión de un poeta Hindú; puesto que los hindús han sido siempre gente religiosa profunda y creativa. Hasta donde podemos juzgar, Kalidas se movía entre las sectas discordantes con simpatía por todas, fanáticos por ninguna. Las oraciones de dedicatoria que introducen al drama están dedicadas a Shiva.

Esto difícilmente es algo más que una convención, pues Shiva es el patrón de la literatura. En una de sus epopeyas,El Nacimiento del Dios de la Guerra, se distingue como Shivaista, en otra, La Dinastía de Ragu, no es menos Vishnuista en tendencia. En el himno a Vishnu en La Dinastía de Raghu hay una expresión del monismo Védico, el himno de Brahma en El Nacimiento del Dios de la Guerra le da por igual expresión a su rival dualista del sistema de Sankhya. Tampoco el Yoga y el budismo son dejados sin una mención de simpatía. Se justifica por ello que concluyamos que Kalidasa era, en asuntos de religión, lo que William James llamaba, “mente saludable,” empática, no un “alma enferma.”

Hay algunas otras impresiones de la vida y personalidad de Kalidasa que se convierten gradualmente en condenas en la mente de quien lee y relee su poesía, a pesar de que son menos susceptibles a ser demostrados. Uno se siente seguro de que era físicamente atractivo, y un hindú atractivo es un tipo de hombría maravillosa. 

Uno sabe que fascina a las mujeres, pues a su vez ellas le fascinaban. Se conoce que los niños le querían. Uno se convence de que nunca sufrió ninguna mórbida experiencia que sacudiera su alma con dudas como las que acarrean las dudas religiosas, o los dolores del amor despreciado, que por el contrario transitó entre los hombres y mujeres en una trama serena y divina, ni autocomplaciente ni ascética, con la mente y los sentidos siempre alertas ante toda forma de belleza. 

Sabemos que su poesía fue popular mientras vivía, y no podemos dudar que su personalidad era igualmente atractiva, aunque es probable que ningún contemporáneo suyo conocía a plenitud la medida de su grandeza. Pues su naturaleza era de un equilibrio singular, lo mismo en el país, en una espléndida corte y en una montaña solitaria, al igual que con los hombres de alto y bajo rango. Hombres así no son nunca totalmente apreciados en vida. Siguen creciendo después de muertos.