Page 86 - SST Class 06

5. Under what conditions did Harshavardhana ascend the throne?
6. Describe the Nalanda University during Harshavardhana’s rule.

1. Do you think, the eugolies or prashastis throw the actual information or they exaggerated?

2. What does the presence, of so many astronomers, mathematicians, scientists and medicine men in
the Gupta period show?

Kalidasa
Kalidasa was classical India’s master poet and dramatist. He demonstrated the
expressive and suggestive heights of which the Sanskrit language is capable and
revealed the very essence of an entire civilisation. Nothing is known with certainty
about the life of Kalidasa. Clearly later than the great Buddhist poet Asvaghosha
(1st century), Kalidasa was celebrated as a major literary figure in the first half of
the 7th century (the Aihole inscription, 634). The scholarly consensus outside India
is that Kalidasa flourished in the time of Chandragupta II (reigned 380-413). A
traditional Indian view would have it that he adorned Vikramaditya’s court in the
1st century BC. Although he was especially fond of the Gupta capital city, Ujjain, there is no proof that
he was born there.
In Kalidas’s creations, we enter the world of people pure in mind and body and who are graceful. We
learn here the manner in which man’s nature can reach high, moral levels. It pleases us deeply to come
into contact with characters like Parvati, Dileepa, Raghu, Aja, Shakuntala, Dushyanta and Kanva. It is for
this wonderful experience that we as well as people in other countries read Kalidas.

Contemporary Social Science-6
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