About this reader
Kālidāsa wrote in Sanskrit somewhere around the fourth or fifth century. Most of us meet him in translation, and a translation — however good — quietly replaces the poem. This reader is built on the opposite principle.
The Sanskrit stays
Every verse opens as Devanagari, at a size meant for reading rather than decoration, with romanisation beneath it that you can hide once you no longer need it.
Three translations, not one
A literal rendering shows the grammar; a natural one shows the sense; a poetic one tries to keep the movement. Reading all three is a way of seeing what a single translation has to give up.
Word by word
Each verse carries glosses for its key words and compounds — meaning, grammatical role, root, and a note when the word is doing something unusual.
Metre and craft
Sanskrit poetry is measured in long and short syllables. Each verse shows its metre and what that rhythm is doing, along with a short note on image, technique and the moment in the story.
A companion that answers from the verse
Beside each verse you can ask questions in plain English. The companion is given the Sanskrit, the glosses and the commentary, and is asked to answer from them — not to paraphrase the poem away.
A note on the texts
The verses here are the well-known readings found in standard editions. Translations, glosses and commentary are written for this reader and aim at clarity rather than novelty. Recitation audio is not yet recorded; where a verse has none, the reader says so instead of pretending otherwise.