KÁLIDÁSA.
Vikramorvasi; or Vikrama and Urvasi: a drama. ... With a commentary, explanatory of the Prákrit passages.
Calcutta, printed at the Education Press, Circular Road, 1830. Large 8vo. Except for the title-page, the book is entirely in the Prákrit language and set in a single size of Devanagari type. Contemporary half calf. [4], 122 pp. (numbered in Prákrit).
€ 575
The first Prákrit edition, printed in 1830 in Calcutta, of one of the three dramas we can attribute to the classical Sanskrit poet Kálidása. In five plays, it tells the Vedic love story, founded on a legend related in the Satapatha-Brâhmana, of King Pururavas (or Vikrama) and an Aspara, the celestial nympf Urvasi. The drama tells of the tragic love between the mortal Pururavas and the divine nympf Urvasi, where Pururavas has to lift the curse on Urvasi by showing valour. The play is remarkable because of the richness of the Prákrit (an Indian dialect that can be regarded as the language of the lower orders) in both structure and metrical code.
With the library stamp of the Institut Catholique Toulouse. Binding slightly worn, a little piece of the spine lost, but otherwise in good condition. Ancient and Mediaeval India II, pp. 191-206; Luthra, Tales from Kalidasa (2006), p. 76; preface to the 1826 English ed. by Horace Hayman Wilson (Calcutta, V. Holcroft, Asiatic Press), pp. 3-11.
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