Kālidāsa’s Kumārasambhava: Notes 1

Harunaga Isaacson
May 26, 2019

16. The subject is vivasvān, one of the names of the sun. With adhaḥ …
parivartamānaḥ Kālidāsa wishes to impress on us how high the highest
point (agra) of the Himālaya is.

17. Some sources read kalpitayajñabhāgo, instead of kalpitayajñabhāgaṃ;

in that case the word would have to be a bahuvrīhi adjective qualify-
ing Prajāpati. With the reading we have, it is best taken as a (locative)
bahuvrīhi qualifying śailādhipatyam. The yajñāṅgas meant are, as Vallab-
hadeva says, things such as the leaves of the Soma plant.

18. The narrative of the poem begins. mānasīm: Menā is, as Vallab-
hadeva puts it, manonirmitām, made or emanated (by the Pitṛs) from
their minds. He quotes (or refers to) a Tradition (āgama) according to
which the Pitṛs made in this way three daughters, giving one to the
Himālaya, one to Mount Meru, and one to ‘another’.

19. vṛtraśatru is a name/epithet of Indra. In the Ṛgveda, Indra’s most

often mentioned exploit is his slaying of the serpent-demon Vṛtra, by
which deed the pent-up waters are released. This verse alludes to an-
other deed of Indra. As Vallabhadeva writes:
pūrvaṃ hi sapakṣāḥ parvatā āsan. tatas teṣāṃ lokasya rujatāṃ vṛtrahā
vajreṇa pakṣān acchaitsīd ity āgamaḥ.
For in former times the mountains had wings. Then, as they caused harm
to the world, the Slayer of Vṛtra cut off their wings with his thunderbolt;
so the Tradition says.1 1
There seems to be no clear reference
to this idea/story in the Ṛgveda, though
nāgavadhūpabhogya: the mountain Maināka was married by a female it is plausible that it goes back to ref-
erences there to Indra making the
Nāga, or perhaps many female Nāgas (as Vallabhadeva says).
mountains stable or cutting their peaks
(e.g. in 4.19.4).
20. The sage Dakṣa, a son of Brahmā, and like Brahmā himself also
reckoned as a Creator (Prajāpati), had many daughters, who became
the wives of sages or gods. At a great sacrifice which he performed,
he invited all his daughters and son-in-laws, excepting Satī and her
husband Śiva/Rudra.

21. As Vallabhadeva explains, the comparison (upamā) in this verse

alludes to concepts of Arthaśāstra (which is also called Nīti), the science
of ruling.
udapādi, the verb in this verse, is a passive aorist: see e.g. Gonda Kurze
Elementar-Grammatik der Sanskrit-Sprache p. 73 § 96, or Whitney Sanskrit
Grammar pp. 304ff. §§ 842ff.
 kālidāsa’s kumārasambhava: notes 1 2

22. The first half of this verse consists of three bahuvrīhi adjectives, all
qualifying tajjanmadinam, which is the subject.

23. prabhāmaṇḍalam, ‘circle of light’, ‘halo’, is a favorite word of Kālidāsa;

divine beings, divine weapons, and sometimes great human beings may
have them.
vaiḍūryabhūmir. I have a suspicion that Vallabhadeva in fact read viḍūrab-
hūmir. In any case he explains the compound to mean the ground of,
i.e. on, the mountain Viḍūra (the name of which is more commonly
written Vidūra; it is unnecessary, though, to emend viḍūrākhyasya to
vidūrākhyasya, as the editor M.S. Narayana Murti seems to suggest).2 2
It is, however, necessary to accept in
the same sentence the reading of A,
tatra hi megharavena prāvṛṣi ratnāni jāyanta iti vārtā. vālavāyāparanāmno; the alternative
name of the mountain is Vālavāya or
For there (on Mount Viḍūra) in the rainy season thunder produces jewels; Bālavāya, not Vālavāyāja.
so they say.

The jewel for which this mountain is famous is vaiḍūrya, possibly lapis
lazuli, or alternatively beryl (the name of which is presumably de-
rived,via Prakrit and Ancient Greek, from Sanskrit vaiḍūrya/vaidūrya—itself
assumed because of the prevalence of forms with retroflexion to be a
Dravidian loan-word.

24. cāndramasī is an adjective, derived from the noun candramas (‘moon’),

and so meaning ‘moon-related, of the moon, lunar’. kalāntarāṇi is a
noun; jyotsnāntarāṇi is a (bahuvrīhi) adjective to it.

25. ābhijana is an adjective, derived from the noun abhijana ‘family, de-
scent’; hence ‘based on/related to her descent’ (in as much as Pārvatī
can literally mean ‘Daughter of the Mountain’). From Vallabhadeva’s
commentary, it seems rather as though he may have read uṃ meti in-
stead of u meti, even though then the relationship with Pārvatī’s other
name, Umā, is less direct. um, he says, expresses affectionate anger
(praṇayakopa), while mā expresses prohibition. Others understand the
force of u (or um) slightly differently; Aruṇagirinātha, for instance, says
that u is a tapovācakam avyayam, a particle expressing suffering (or does
he mean asceticism? I have not encountered the idea of a tapovācakam
avyayam elsewhere), while Mallinātha calls u a particle of address (voca-
tive particle).