INTRODUCTION. A new book on Kalidasa and his poetry would now-a-days be considered a work of supererogation, unless the writer has something new to say about the poet and his productions. The date of Kalidasa has been at last conclusively settled by the industry of two eminent scholars, viz., Dr. T. Bloch and Pandit Ramavatara Sharma Sahityacharya, the results of whose researches, carried on independently of each other, happily agree in almost every detail. They have succeeded in satisfactorily proving from evidence, both internal and external, that the author of Raghuvamshan and Kumarasambhavam flourished during the reign of Chandragupta II, Wikramaditya, and that of his son Kumaragupta. Obvious references to the Gupta kings are to be found in lines like “आसमुद्रक्षितीशानाम् etc." -which contains a covert allusion- to the line of kings beginning with Samudragupta
- तस्मै सभ्याः सभार्य्याय गोधॊ गुप्सतमेन्द्रियाः ।।”* **अन्वारस्य गोप्ता गgहिणी-सहायः ||°3
(1) Raghuvamsham, 1-5. a. (2) Raghuvamsham, I-55. (3) Raghuvamsham, 2-24,
