The Origins of the Young God: Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhava by Hank Heifetz: Goodreads Review

by Hank Heifetz

Kalidasa is often said to be the Shakespeare of India and The Origin of the Young God is considered one of his best poems. It is the story of the how the tender and lovely Parvati (the daughter of Himalaya) wins over the ascetic god Shiva, as well as their courtship, marriage, and the consummation of that marriage. Kalidasa’s Sanskrit flows musically in one’s ear, and it is simply not possible to recreate the beauty of the original. Nevertheless, Hank Heifetz 1985 translation does an admirable job in conveying not only the sense of each stanza, but also the rhythm. An example is 1.8, a lovely verse describing the winds of the Himalaya, the future father of Parvati.

He blows into the hollows of bamboos with the wind
rising up from the mouths of his caves as if he were
sending that sound out of a drone note for demigod
Kinnara musicians to build on when they sing.

However, in trying too hard to reproduce the Sanskrit syntax, Heifetz tends to break the flow of lines with one or more long parenthetical clauses. Consider his translation of stanza 7.18, describing Parvati:

The lower lip of that woman whose limbs were perfect,
with the red of it heightened a little by wax and a line
swelling up at its center, the fruit of its grace
soon to come, was pulsing, adding an indescribable beauty.

By the time I got to the word verb, I’d forgotten what it was that was pulsing.

Heifetz’s notes are good, but they often just give the literal meaning of a word or phrase, rather that speak to the word, phrase, or verse’s meaning.

I will close by quoting the last stanza of the entire poem, (8.91), which is my all-time favorite. Here, Shiva, the ascetic god, after eight long cantos, finally gets to make love to his new wife. And he does so with a vengeance. It’s a love-making that seems to be powered by the psychic energy the god had stored up from years practicing austerities in the forest. No wonder this canto was censured in the Indian schools.

With the day and the night the same to him,
Shiva spent his time making love
and he passed twenty-five years
as if it were a single night
and his thirst for the pleasures of loving
never became any less in him
as the fire that burns below the ocean
is never satisfied by the rolling waters.

I would have left the original “one hundred fifty seasons” instead of Heifetz’s “twenty-five years,” since “seasons” is the more colorful word and ties in with the many descriptions of Spring and nature. All in all, though, it’s a worthy translation of this fine verse and a good example of Heifetz’s excellent craft. Afterthought: the modern reader may wonder how Parvati’s dealing with twenty-five years of non-stop sex, but that’s another matter.