century of the present era, the great age of the Hindú plays would of
itself be a most interesting and attractive circumstance, even if
their poetical merit were not of a very high order. But when to the
antiquity of these productions is added their extreme beauty and
excellence as literary compositions, and when we also take into
account their value as representations of the early condition of Hindú
society--which, notwithstanding the lapse of two thousand years, has
in many particulars obeyed the law of unchangeableness ever stamped on
the manners and customs of the East--we are led to wonder that the
study of the Indian drama has not commended itself in a greater degree
to the attention of Europeans, and especially of Englishmen. The
English student, at least, is bound by considerations of duty, as well
as curiosity, to make himself acquainted with a subject which
elucidates and explains the condition of the millions of Hindús who
owe allegiance to his own Sovereign, and are governed by English laws.

Of all the Indian dramatists, indeed of all Indian poets, the most
celebrated is Kálidása, the writer of the present play. The late
Professor Lassen thought it probable that he flourished about the
middle of the third century after Christ. Professor Kielhorn of
Göttingen has proved that the composer of the Mandasor Inscription
(A.D. 472) knew Kálidása's Ritusamhára. Hence it may be inferred that
Lassen was not far wrong[1]. Possibly some King named Vikramáditya
received Kálidása at his Court, and honoured him by his patronage
about that time. Little, however, is known of the circumstances of his
life. There is certainly no satisfactory evidence to be adduced in
support of the tradition current in India that he lived in the time
of the _great_ King Vikramáditya I., whose capital was Ujjayiní, now
Oujein.