PREFACE.
Of the history of Kálidása, to whom by general assent the Kumára Sambhava, or Birth of the War-God, is attributed, we know but little with any certainty; we can only gather from a memorial-verse which enumerates their names, that he was one of the 'Nine Precious Stones' that shone at the Court of Vikramáditya, King of Oujein, in the half-century immediately preceding the Christian era. As the examination of arguments for and against the correctness of this date is not likely to interest general readers, I must request them to rest satisfied with the belief that about the time when Virgil and Horace were shedding an undying lustre upon the reign of Augustus, our poet Kálidasa lived, loved, and sang, giving and taking honour, at the polished court of the no less munificent patron of Sanskrit literature, at the period of its highest perfection.
Little as we know of Indian poetry, here and
