Kumāradāsa is the author of a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

''Mahākāvya'' called the ''Jānakī-haraṇa'' or Jānakī's abduction. ''Jānakī'' is another name of

Sita Sita (; ), also known as Siya, Jānaki and Maithili, is a Hindu goddess and the female protagonist of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. Sita is the consort of Rama, the avatar of god Vishnu, and is regarded as an avatar of goddess Lakshmi. She is t ...

, wife of

Rama Rama (; , , ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric Hindu traditions, he is considered the Supreme Being. Also considered as the ideal man (''maryāda' ...

. Sita was abducted by

Ravana According to the Mahakavya, Hindu epic, ''Ramayana'', Ravana was a kingJustin W. Henry, ''Ravana's Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below'', Oxford University Press, p.3 of the island of Lanka, in which he is the chief antag ...

when she along with the Rama, exiled from his kingdom, and

Lakshmana Lakshmana (, ), also known as Laxmana, Lakhan, Saumitra, and Ramanuja, is the younger brother of Rama in the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. He is considered as an incarnation of Shesha, the lord of serpents. Lakshmana was married to Urmila, and i ...

was living in a forest which incident is taken from

Ramayana The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

('Rama's Journey'), the great

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

written by

Valmiki Valmiki (; , ) was a legendary poet who is celebrated as the traditional author of the epic ''Ramayana'', based on the attribution in the text itself. He is revered as ''Ādi Kavi'', the first poet, author of ''Ramayana'', the first epic poe ...

. The Sinhalese translation of his work, ''Jānakī-haraṇa'', gave credence to the belief that Kumāradāsa was King Kumāradhātusena (513-522 A.D.) of

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

but most scholars do not make any such identification even though the poet at the end of his poem says that his father, Mānita, a commander of the rearguard of the Sinhalese King Kumāramaṇi, died in battle on the day he was born and that his maternal uncles, Megha and Agrabodhi, brought him up. Rajasekhara, who lived around 900 A.D., in his ''Kāvyamīmāmsā'' refers to the poet as born blind - मेधाविरुद्रकुमारदासादयः जात्यन्धाः. There is also a tradition that this poem was written by

Kalidasa Kālidāsa (, "Servant of Kali"; 4th–5th century CE) was a Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on Hindu Puranas and philosophy. His surviv ...

. Kumāradāsa came after Kalidasa and lived around 500 A.D., later than Bhāravi but before

Māgha Magha (c. 7th century) (, ) was a Sanskrit Language, Sanskrit poet at Vatsraj, King Varmalata's court at Bhinmal, Shrimala, the then-capital of Gujarat (presently in Rajasthan state). Magha was born in a Shrimali Brahmins, Shrimali Brahmin fami ...

. While writing ''Jānakī-haraṇa'', he certainly had before him ''

Raghuvaṃśa (Devanagari: , lit. 'lineage of Raghu') is a Sanskrit epic poem ('' mahakavya'') by the celebrated Sanskrit poet Kalidasa. Though an exact date of composition is unknown, the poet is presumed to have flourished in the 5th century CE. It narrat ...

'' of Kalidasa. Another legend recounts that Kālidāsa visits his friend Kumāradāsa, the king of Lanka and is murdered by a courtesan and overwhelmed with grief, Kumāradāsa also threw himself to the funeral pyre of Kālidāsa. In his "Survey of Sanskrit Literature", about Kumāradāsa and ''Jānakī-haraṇa'' (20 Cantos), which poem the poet is believed to have written during his stay in

Kanchipuram Kanchipuram (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: '; ), also known as Kanjeevaram, is a stand alone city corporation, satellite nodal city of Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in the Tondaimandalam region, from ...

where he lived, C. Kunhan Raja Ph.D. says: :"In language, in the metres that he adopts, in the descriptions, in the entire technique of the epic, the influence which Kālidāsa must have exerted on the poet is quite plain…….he is quite original in his presentation of the theme…..He must have been a great scholar and grammarian…. he is never pedantic in his use of the language. He ranks as among the best poets, and in tradition, he is brought into an equal position with Kālidāsa and ''Raghuvaṃśa''." A verse in the Subhāṣita-ratna-kośa refers to Kumāradāsa's Jānakī-haraṇa:

References

{{Reflist Sanskrit poets Epic poets Kalidasa