room for his successor.  One may go farther and say that it is not possible to give a brief and accurate title to the poem.  It is not a Ramayana, or epic of Rama’s deeds, for Rama is on the stage during only a third of the poem.  It is not properly an epic of Raghu’s line, for many kings of this line are unmentioned.  Not merely kings who escape notice by their obscurity, but also several who fill a large place in Indian story, whose deeds and adventures are splendidly worthy of epic treatment. The Dynasty of Raghu is rather an epic poem in which Rama is the central figure, giving it such unity as it possesses, but which provides Rama with a most generous background in the shape of selected episodes concerning his ancestors and his descendants.

Rama is the central figure.  Take him away and the poem falls to pieces like a pearl necklace with a broken string.  Yet it may well be doubted whether the cantos dealing with Rama are the most successful.  They are too compressed, too briefly allusive.  Kalidasa attempts to tell the story in about one-thirtieth of the space given to it by his great predecessor Valmiki.  The result is much loss by omission and much loss by compression.  Many of the best episodes of the Ramayana are quite omitted by Kalidasa:  for example, the story of the jealous humpback who eggs on Queen Kaikeyi to demand her two boons; the beautiful scene in which Sita insists on following Rama into the forest; the account of the somnolent giant Pot-ear, a character quite as good as Polyphemus.  Other fine episodes are so briefly alluded to as to lose all their charm:  for example, the story of the golden deer that attracts the attention of Rama while Ravana is stealing his wife; the journey of the monkey Hanumat to Ravana’s fortress and his interview with Sita.

The Rama-story, as told by Valmiki, is one of the great epic stories of the world.  It has been for two thousand years and more the story par excellence of the Hindus; and the Hindus may fairly claim to be the best story-tellers of the world.  There is therefore real matter for regret in the fact that so great a poet as Kalidasa should have treated it in a way not quite worthy of it and of himself.  The reason is not far to seek, nor can there be any reasonable doubt as to its truth.  Kalidasa did not care to put himself into direct competition with Valmiki.  The younger poet’s admiration of his mighty predecessor is clearly expressed.  It is with especial reference to Valmiki that he says in his introduction: 

  Yet I may enter through the door
  That mightier poets pierced of yore;
  A thread may pierce a jewel, but
  Must follow where the diamond cut.

He introduces Valmiki into his own epic, making him compose the Ramayana in Rama’s lifetime.  Kalidasa speaks of Valmiki as “the poet,” and the great epic he calls “the sweet story of Rama,” “the first path shown to poets,” which, when sung by the two boys, was heard with motionless delight by the deer, and, when sung before a gathering of learned men, made them heedless of the tears that rolled down their cheeks.