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A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History and Literature - John Dowson, 1820 - Complete Book

English

Being their father, he became their son. There is no other power superior to him." The Vishwu, Bhagavata, and Padma Pura/zas state that Brahma existed in the form of Time, " but the Puranas do not generally recognise Time as an element of the first cause." KALAKA. A wife of Kasyapa. According to the Rama- yaTia and INIaha-bharata she was a daughter of Daksha, but the Yish?zu Pura?ia states that she and her sister Pulomil were daughters of the Danava Yaiswanara, " who were both married to Kasyapa, and bore him 60,000 distinguished Danavas, called Paulomas and Kfdakanjas, Avho were powerful, ferocious, and cruel." The INlaha-bharata states that she obtained from the deity, in reward for her severe devotion and penance, the privilege of bringing forth children without pain. The giants or Danavas were called after her Kfdakeyas. KALAKANJAS, KALAKEYAS. Sons of Ka^yapa by his wife Krdaka. There were many thousands of them, and they were " distinguished Danavas, who were powerful, ferocious, and cruel." KALA-MUKHAS—KALL 141 KALA-MUKHAS. ' Black faces.' Peoi^le who sprang from men and Eaksliasa females. K ALAN AS. (Kalytwa.) A Brahman who yielded to the inducements of Alexander the Great and left his native country to accompany the court of the conqueror. He afterwards re- pented of what he had done and burnt himself at Pasargada. KALA-NEMI. i. In the Ramaya?ia a Rakshasa, uncle of Ravawn. At the solicitation of Ravawa, and with the promise of half his kingdom, he endeavoured to kill Hanuman. Assum- ing the form of a hermit-devotee, he went to the Gandha-madana mountain, and when Hanuman proceeded thither in search of medicinal herbs, the disguised Rakshasa invited him to his hermitage and offered him food. Hanuman refused, but went to bathe in a neighbouring pond. Upon his placing his foot in the water it was seized by a crocodile, but he dragged the creature out and killed it. From the dead body there arose a lovely A]Dsaras, who had been cursed by Daksha to live as a crocodile till she should be released by Hanuman. She told her deliverer to be beware of Kala-nemi ; so Hanuman went back to that deceiver, told him that he knew him, and, taking him by the feet, sent him whirling through the air to Lanka, where he fell before the throne of Rava?za in the council-room. 2. In the Purawas a great Asura, son of Yirochana, the grandson of Hira^iya-kasipu. He was killed by Yish?zu, but was said to live again in Kansa and in Kaliya. KALA-YAYANA. (Lit. ' Black Yavana,' Yavana meaning a Greek or foreigner.) A Yavana or foreign king who led an army of barbarians to Mathura against K?'ish?ia. That hero lured him into the cave of the mighty Muchukunda, who being dis- turbed from sleep by a kick from Kala-yavana, cast a fiery glance upon him and reduced him to ashes. This legend appears, to indicate an invasion from the Himalayas. Accord- ing to the A^ish?zu Purawa and Hari-vansa, Kala-yavana was the son of a Brahman named Garga, who had an especial spite against the Yadavas, and was begotten by him on the wife of a childless Yavana king. KALHA:N"A pandit. Author of the Raja TarangiwI, a his- tory of Kashmir. He is supposed to have lived about 1 148 a.d. KALI. The Kali-yuga, personified as the spirit of evil. In playing dice Kali is the ace, and so is a personification of ill luck. 1 42 kAli—kAli-dasa . KALI. ' The black. ' In Yedic days this name was asso- ciated Avith Agni (fire), who had seven flickering tongues of flame for devouring oblations of butter. Of these seven, Krdl was the black or terrific tongue. This ineaning of the word is now lost, but it has developed into the goddess Kali, the fierce and bloody consort of Siva. See Devi. KALI-DASA. The greatest poet and dramatist of India. He was one of " the nine gems " that adorned the court of King Yikramaditya at Ujjayini. AVilson inclines to the behef that this was the Yikramadit}'a whose era begins in 56 B.C., but Dr. Ehau Daji argues in favour of Harsha Yikramaditya who lived in the middle of the sixth century, so the date of Kali-dasa is unsettled. AVilliams thinks that Kali-dasa wrote about the beginning of the third century. Lassen places him half a century earlier. Some believe that there w^as more than one poet who bore this name as an honorary title. Kali-dasa was author of the dramas /S'akuntala and Yikramorvasi, and a third drama Malavikagnimitra is attributed to him. >S'akuntala was translated by Sir W. Jones, and first brought Sansk?-it literature to the notice of Europe. AYilson has translated Yikramorvasi, and given a sketch of Malavikagnimitra. The following poems are ascribed to Kali-dasa : — Raghu-vansa, Kumara-sambhava, Megha-diita, ^itu-sanhara, Nalodaya, but his authorship of all these, especially of the last, may well be doubted. He was also author of the ^ruta-bodha, a work on prosody. The merits' of Kali-dasa as a poet are well attested by his great popularity in India, as well as by the great favour with which ^S'akuntala w^as received in Europe, and the praise it elicited from Goethe : — " Willst du die Blutlie des friihen, die Frlichte des Rpiiteren Jahres, "Willst du, was reizt und entzuckt, willst du, was sattigt und niihrt, Willst du den Himmel, die Erde, mit eiiiem Namen begreifen, Nenn' ich 5akuntala dich, und so ist AUes gesagt."' " Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms and the fruits of its decline. And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed ? Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine ? I name thee, 0 /S'akuntala ! and all at once is said." Lassen in his IncUsche Alterthumshunde says, " Kfdi-dasa may be considered as the brightest star in the firmament of Hindu artificial poetry. He deserves this praise on account of the KALIKA—KALIKA-PURANA. 143 mastery witli which he wields the language, and on account of the consummate tact with which he imparts to it a more simple or more artificial form, according to the requirements of the subjects treated by him, without falling into the artificial dic- tion of later poets or over-stepping the limits of good taste ; on account of the variety of his creations, his ingenious con- ceptions, and his happy choice of subjects ; and not less on account of the complete manner in which he attains his poetical ends, the beauty of his narrative, the delicacy of his sentiment, and the fertility of his imagination." Many of his works have been translated, and there is a French translation of the whole by Fauche. IvALIKA. The goddess Krdi. KALIKA PURAiVA. One of the eighteen Upa Pura7ias. " It contains about 9000 stanzas in 98 chapters, and is the only work of the series dedicated to recommend the worship of the bride of AS'iva, in one or other of her manifold forms as Giri-ja, Devi, Bhadra-kali, Kali, Maha-maya. It belongs, there- fore, to the iS'akta modification of Hindu belief, or the worship of the female powers of the deities. The influence of this worship shows itself in the very first pages of the work, which relate the incestuous passion of Brahma for his daughter, San- dhya, in a strain that has nothing analogous to it in the Vayu, Linga, or ^S^iva Pura?ias. The marriage of ^S'iva and Parvati is a subject early described, with the sacrifice of Daksha and the death of Satl. And this work is authority for >S'iva's carrying the dead body about the world, and the origin of the Pi^ha- sthanas, or ^^laces where the different members of it were scat- tered, and where Lingas were consequently erected. A legend follows of the births of Bhairava and Yetala, whose devotion to the difierent forms of Devi furnishes occasion to describe, in great detail, the rites and formulce of which her worship consists, including the chajDters on sanguinary sacrifices translated in the Asiatic Researches (vol. v.). Another peculiarity in this work is afi'orded by very prolix descriptions of a number of rivers and mountains at Kamarupa Tirtha, in Assam, and rendered holy ground by the celebrated temple of Durga in that country, as Kamakshi or Kamakshya. It is a singular and yet uninvesti- gated circumstance, that Assam, or at least the north-east of Bengal, seems to have been, in a great degree, the source from 144 KALINDI—KALMASHA-PADA. which, the Tantrika and >Sakta corruptions of the religion of the Yedas and Piiruwas proceeded." — Wilson. KALIXDI A name of the river Yamuna, as daughter of Kalinda (the sun). EL^LIXGA. The country along the Coromandel coast, north of Madras. The Calingaa proximi mari of Pliny.