Appellations of Siva in the Works of Kalidasa

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This book APPELLATIONS OF SIVA IN THE WORKS OF KALIDASA presents a study on names of Siva found in the works of Kalidasa. Through this work the author has made an attempt to examine the contextual propriety of names of Siva used by Kalidasa in his works, and thereby to assess Kalidasa's cognizance on different facets of Siva's personality. This book has mainly two parts, Le. introduction on life and works of Kalidasa and study on the names of Siva in the works of Kalidasa. In the study part, names of Siva have been categorized under four headings, viz. Mythological, Feature-oriented, Saiva-generic and Generic, and commented on those with their selected textual references. The propriety of names in relation to their occurrences in specific contexts has been judged on their philosophical, mythological, poetical, traditional and contextual backgrounds. This study is an original and independent contribution to the study of Kalidāsa.

Dr. Anil Kumar Acharya is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sanskrit, Ambedkar College (A Govt. Degree College), of Tripura. Dr. Acharya has obtained his Ph.D. in Sanskrit from Pondicherry University, Puducherry. He has also worked in several research projects of the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP), a research centre of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs situated in the Union Territory of Puducherry. His areas of research are Sanskrit Literature, Manuscriptology and History of Saivism (Sivadharma Corpus and Odisha). He has attended a number of National and International Conferences/workshops, viz. international workshop on "Early Tantra" at Kathmandu, 15 World Sanskrit Conference at New Delhi etc. He is crowned with the Pandit Ganeshwar Dash Prize for the best performance in 'Epic & Puranas' section of the 45 session of the All-India Oriental Conference held at Tirupati. He has published several research papers in various national and international journals and books pertaining to his area study. He is associated with different research organisations and academic bodies in various capacities.

During the course of my research on Saiva religion I became curious to know Śiva through the works of Kalidasa. And this curiosity was the inspiration behind conceptualizing the main theme presented in this book. This theme was conceptualized in early part of the year 2009 during my stay at French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP). Subsequently it was developed as an article and presented in the All India Kalidasa Samaroha held during November 2010 at Ujjain, Madhyapradesh. By the grace of Lord Mahakala of Ujjain, during the Samaroha an opportunity of Govt. job bestowed upon me and I had to leave the Samaroha in the middle to join the service as an Assistant Professor under the Govt. of Tripura. After that, efforts have been made to publish it with some revisions in some journals, but its length became an issue, therefore could not be published as an article in a journal. I think it was a blessing in disguise, as following that I made up my mind to publish the same in form of a book. So a short general introduction was planned, and completed during the period of lockdown due to Corona pandemic. It is a matter of satisfaction that after almost one decade original research work is published.

This book has mainly two parts, one is introduction and another is the core theme of this book, i.e. a study on the appellations of Siva in the works of Kalidasa. The introductory part briefly presents facts on Kalidasa compiled from different sources regarding the life, works and poetic merits of Kalidāsa. And the study part elaborately discusses each and every names of Lord Siva which are found in the works of Kalidasa. This study part is an original and indipendent contribution to the study of Kalidasa. The objective of this study is to examine the contextual propriety of names and thereby to assess Kalidasa's awareness of the different facets of Siva's personality. Names of Śiva and their references in the works of Kalidasa have been sourced mainly from Kalidasakosa and Kalidasaparyayakośa of S.C. Banerji and Tribhuvananath Sukla, respectively. Those names have been categorized under four headings, viz. Mythological, Feature-oriented, Saiva-Generic and Generic, and commented on those with their selected textual references. The propriety of names in relation to their occurrences in specific contexts has been judged on their philosophical, mythological, poetical, traditional and contextual backgrounds. A versified list of names of Lord Śiva found in the works of Kalidasa have been presented at the beginning of the study. Hope this work will appeal to the minds of researchers, and enrich the study on Kalidasa.

I thank Dr. Nirajan Kafle, my dear friend from Nepal, for his help in checking the versified list of names and his valuable suggestions. Also appreciate the help of Mr. Narnthiran, librarian, and others of staff of IFP library for helping me to source materials for this book. My thank goes to the publisher Aayu Publications, New Delhi.

I do hereby salute Kalidasa, who has great poetic thoughts and sweet literary creations, and eulogies his skill of simile.

Kalidasa is the greatest of great poets of classical Sanskrit literature with an incredible poetic talent. His acumen in use of the figure of speech simile (upama) is well known and appreciated with the popular line-"upamā kālidāsasya". His life and literature are sources of inspiration for scholars of all time. Not only in Sanskrit language, but also in many international and regional vernaculars huge literature have been created keeping Kalidasa and his works at the center. This proves his all time incontrovertible relevance in the world of literatures. Thus, we could say.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages