XI

G^ wu ^ ^ <mp^ y^t

u What though to northern climes thy journey lay,
Consent to track a shortly devious way;

To fair Ujjaini's palaces and pride,

And beauteous daughters, turn awhile aside;

Those glancing eyes, those lighting looks unseen,
Dark are thy days, and thou in vain hast been.

MegTia Duta, or Cloud Messenger,

By Kalidasa,
(Trans. H. H. Wilson.)

^[UST below the tropic of Cancer, at longitude 75*50, on
^J the banks of the Sipra river lies the city of Ujjam,
today a part of the State of G-walior. The history of
Ujjain, like that of most of the cities of India, presents
a chequered, pattern on which are contrasted times of
power and prosperity with times of sack and destruction;

but, unlike many another important place that has
vanished or faded away into insignificance, Ujjam still
stands where the Sipra flows—a busy town of Central
India.

The G-olden Age of India that coincides with the
Gupta Empire saw an amazing development of Sanskrit
literature; during this also flourshed the sciences and
the arts, painting and sculpture and architecture, and it
was at the court of Ujjain that lived and wrote the
greatest of Hindu poets and dramatists of ancient India,
Kalidasa. Although the exact place of Kalidasa/s