কালিদাস ও ভবভূতির দ্বারা চিত্রিত নারীচরিত্র : একটি তুলনামূলক অধ্যয়ন/ Female Characters Portrayed by Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti : A Comparative Study

Abstract

Kalidasa was a poet of beauty and love. The poet has shown the greatness of human beauty along with the beauty of nature and in his vivid depiction of that human beauty, he has not allowed the stench of desire to enter anywhere. When the poet's pen was on the beauty of women, all the strings of his heart would ring in unison. Bhavabhuti's place was the greatest among the later playwrights. His plays were Uttararamacharita and Malatimadhav etc. From the study of these it is known that Bhavabhuti had studied Kalidasa's plays very meticulously and had taken the initiative to decorate his own works by adopting many of his beautiful imaginations, using words and mystical incidents. To attract Malati's mind, Malati Madhav gave examples of the love stories of Kamandaki, Dushyanta Shakuntala and Pururva-Urvashi which Bhavabhuti had got from Kalidasa's plays. In the ninth act of this play, Madhav is distraught over Malati's sudden disappearance and he prays to Megh (the clouds) to take a message to his beloved and asks Elephant, Wind etc. about Malati's welfare. Bhavabhuti got this idea from Meghdoot and Vikramorvasiya. However, Bhavabhuti's dramatic talent was of a different importance. A comparison of the characters of Sita in Uttara ramacharita and Shakuntala in Shakuntala makes it clear that Bhavabhuti portrayed Sita in his own style, in accordance with his ideal. Just as Kalidasa took the story of Shakuntala from the Mahabharata and gave it a completely new form with his own unique talent. Similarly, Bhavabhuti also took the story of Sita's abandonment from Valmiki and revised and refined it. But in the characterisation of Sita and Shakuntala, the special qualities of both poets come out clearly. Shakuntala was an ascetic but a householder. Even though she was the daughter of a sage, she was a lover. She had modesty, restraint and patience. Her name cannot be compared with Sita, Savitri, Damayanti and Shaivya. The sweetness of Sita’s character lay within both her faults and virtues. But Sita was the only pure and virtuous woman. She considered her husband's happiness as her own happiness.