Memory, Metaphor and Mysticism in Kalidasa's Abhijnakuntalam

Review of an ancient literary text.

A study of Abhijnakuntalam has to situate the contexts in ancient through medieval Indian literature and scholarship before it comes to the colonial and the contemporary. In epistemological privileging, this text has become either a Hindoo play in the colonial, Hindu drama in the Hindutva and a love story in the Western theoretical paradigms of scholarship. The essays in Memory, Metaphor and Mysticism in Kalidasa's 'Abhijnakuntalam attempt to restore contexts, especially philosophical contexts, for reading this play.