Meghadutam of Kalidasa with Sanskrit Commentary and English Translation

Posted on October 25, 2010 by bharateeya

Meghaduta (literally meaning “cloud messenger”) is a lyric poem written by Kalidasa, considered to be one of the greatest Sanskrit poets in India. A short poem of only 111 stanzas, it is one of Kalidasa`s most illustrious works.

Meghaduta is separated into two parts – Purvamegha (Previous cloud) and Uttaramegha (Consequent cloud). According to the story, Kubera, treasurer to the Gods, possesses a band of celestial attendees working for him, named the Yakshas. One of these Yakshas was so besotted and preoccupied with his wife that he absolutely disregarded his duties. As a consequence, he was cursed and banished into the thickness of earthly woods. Wholly demoralised, he kept thinking about his wife and felt her absence terribly. His wife also kept reminiscing about him all day and all night.

Then one day, monsoons started to splash upon earth. The Yaksha saw a rain cloud pass by and requested it to carry a message to his wife, then languishing on Mount Kailash in the Himalayas. The Yaksha then commences to describe the route the cloud should be taking in the northward direction. The description is so enamouring and so pictorial, that one can actually experience the scenes are flashing in front of the eyes in a vision. The Yaksha makes the route seem as bewitching as possible, so that the cloud takes his message to his wife, in the city of Alaka (according to Hindu mythology, Alaka sometimes also referred to as Alakapuri, is a mythical city in the Himalayas.).

The emotions portrayed by Kalidasa in his lyric poem Meghaduta are extremely exquisite, giving rise to the poem first being translated into English by Horace Hayman Wilson in 1813.

DOWNLOAD LINKS

Meghasandesa with Dakshinavartanatha’s Tika – TG Sastri, 1919
Meghaduta with Sanjivani Vyakhya Skt 1894
Kalidasa’s Meghaduta with Skt Commentary & English Translation – KB Pathak, 1916
Meghasandesha with Vallabhadeva’s Commentary, 1911
The Meghaduta or Cloud messenger – English Translation by HH Wilson, 1814
The Meghaduta or Cloud messenger – English Translation by Col. HA Ouvry, 1868

http://www.archive.org/details/mghadtaorcloudm00wilsgoog

Comments

Meghadutam of Kalidasa with Sanskrit Commentary and English Translation — 65 Comments

S on October 29, 2010 at 8:24 pm said:

Very nice, thank you! Minor comment: despite the filename, the first link contains actually not the commentary of Mallinatha but that of Dakshinavartanatha. It seems a PDF of this one: http://www.archive.org/details/MeghadutaWithTheCommentaryOfDaksinavartanatha
(In the preface, MM T. Ganapati Shastri says that this text has more beautiful readings that that used by Mallinatha.)

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- bharateeya on May 1, 2011 at 5:03 am said:
  
  Shreevatsa,
  
  I happened to see your comment just today. Hence the delay in reply.
  Thanks for pointing out this error. I have corrected the error. I have a pdf of Mallinatha’s commentary on Meghasandesa. I will upload it today itself.
  
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  - gayatri on January 18, 2017 at 7:06 am said:
    
    Sir,
    I was searching for mallinath’s commentary of meghadootam for sometime.I was happy to see that you have it,but i couldn’t find it in this site.Kindly provide the link here,if you can.Thank you.
    Gayatri
    
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    - bharateeya on January 18, 2017 at 8:31 am said:
      
      Gayantri, Thanks for pointing out the broken link. I have rectified the link. You can download Sanjivani Vyakhya on Meghaduta from https://archive.org/details/exhaustivenotes00mallgoog
      
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      - gayatri on January 20, 2017 at 10:20 am said:
        
        Sir,
        Thank you
        Gayatri
Aleix on February 6, 2011 at 1:23 pm said:

Thank you very much for this wonderful e-book source.

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Pingback: Meghdoot « Karela Fry
satya pal on October 30, 2012 at 3:51 pm said:

thank you .aap ki jai ho .

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GEETASIVADAS on June 15, 2013 at 6:37 am said:

sir
it is excellent book to read .meghasandeash.nicely discribed the cloudes of the sky .carrying few ran drops.beautiful explanation .

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BK SINHA on July 13, 2013 at 5:35 am said:

Realy I don’t have word to say the excellent job done by u by providing e book “meghdoot” can we hope e-book meghdoot in hindi version

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- bharateeya on July 13, 2013 at 6:19 am said:
  
  Sinhaji,
  
  Several editions of Meghaduta with Hindi translation and commentary are aavailable at Digital Library of India. Giving the links below:
  
  Meghadut (1954)., 99999990822086. Agrwal Vasudevsharn.. 1954. hindi. . 261 pgs.
  meghaduta., 5990010116955. . 1922. hindi. Literature. 92 pgs.
  Meghdoot Ka hindi gadya., 5990010115459. Mahabeer Prasad. 1924. hindi. literature. 63 pgs.
  Meghdoot Kalidas ., 99999990028286. Mishra Keshvprasad. 0. Hindi. Philosophy. 95 pgs.
  Meghdoot Raja laxman Singh Anubadit., 5990010115460. Syamsunder Dass. 1925. hindi. literature. 102 pgs.
  
  You can download the books in PDF format, using DLI Downloader which is available at http://dli-downloader.blogspot.in/2013/04/fast-dli-downloader-tool-to-download.html
  
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meghana on July 17, 2013 at 7:23 am said:

sir when i try to download swapnavasavadatta or meghaduta I always get a message saying “this will harm your computer”.so,i am not able to download them. please send me the kumarasambhava’s next part(from 8th canto)if possible .

thanks

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- bharateeya on July 17, 2013 at 7:41 am said:
  
  Meghana,
  
  There are 6 download links for Meghaduta in this post. So, please be specific in your comment, regarding which link causes problem. I can help you only if I know which edition you are looking for. Regarding Kumarasambhavam, if you had meant M R Kale’s edition, I am not sure if the remaining sargas were published. I could not find it anywhere on the internet or catalogue sites.
  
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- Hemant on September 2, 2020 at 5:00 am said:
  
  Plj tell the meghaduta as a social commentary
  
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Smritilekha Chakraborty on September 26, 2013 at 12:47 pm said:

‘Megh-doot’ paath in a famous Bengali film (‘Satyanweshi’) brought me here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM8prAK-kGI
Was looking for the original Sanskrit shloka of ‘Meghdoot’!

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Rajib Sharma on October 12, 2013 at 12:55 pm said:

I am a beginner pursuant of these great works. Please guide me through this journey & suggest works i should read.

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GADHAVI RAMESH on February 5, 2014 at 9:50 am said:

there are any book in sanskrit that tell about science in simple way?

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pabitra tarai on July 22, 2014 at 3:44 pm said:

awsome poem…….the most romantic poem …

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Dwitikrishna Panda on July 29, 2014 at 12:54 pm said:

I want to up load meghadoot in oriya.can I?

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- bharateeya on July 29, 2014 at 1:02 pm said:
  
  Pandaji,
  
  If you have got a soft copy of Meghaduta in Oriya and wish to upload it to the internet, I would recommend that you upload it to archive.org. It is not a commercial site. Anyone will be able to download it from there and the file will remain there always. Only condition is that the file should not be copyrighted.
  
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harish kumar kabilan on April 16, 2015 at 1:57 pm said:

Thank you

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surojit das on July 7, 2015 at 11:59 am said:

Class 10th Sanskrit book download Bengali language

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Dr suhas chandramondal on July 10, 2015 at 5:15 am said:

We Indian are forgating such rich and beautiful language

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abhimanyu sahoo on November 6, 2015 at 10:43 am said:

it realy a beauty full poet i compelty read it

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ANAND KHATRI on June 10, 2016 at 7:29 am said:

I am impressed with the e books available on the net. Thank you for the needful.

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- Prof(Dr.) S. Adhikary on June 13, 2016 at 9:37 am said:
  
  I’m impressed with the e books available on the net.Thank you so much.
  
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ROHIT DAS on July 2, 2016 at 1:06 pm said:

nice book …excelent

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vishal on May 11, 2017 at 1:23 pm said:

Can you find meghdoot written by C d Deshmukh.
Please forward the link of it.

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Deepa on May 19, 2017 at 5:47 am said:

Please give a short note on poet Kalidasa in sanskrit

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- bharateeya on May 19, 2017 at 9:39 am said:
  
  Refer to the article on Kalidasa at https://sa.wikipedia.org/wiki/कालिदासः
  
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kajalkumar ray on August 27, 2017 at 1:37 am said:

l am interested to know about the philosophical concept of Meghadutam of kalidasa

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- bharateeya on August 27, 2017 at 3:51 pm said:
  
  You may post your query at Bharatiya Vidvat Parishat Google group – https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/bvparishat
  Learned members of this group will be able to help you.
  
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rvgopal on September 9, 2017 at 4:08 pm said:

It is my fortune that I have come across such an excellent source of sanskrit books

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Shrikant khedkar on September 12, 2017 at 6:18 am said:

Pleadse post Chandra Rajan’s work on Kalidasa. The bbok name is ‘The Loom of Time’.

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- bharateeya on September 12, 2017 at 11:59 am said:
  
  This is a recent publication and is not in open domain. You can either access it from a library or buy a copy from the publishers.
  
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Dr Ramachandra on December 3, 2017 at 12:50 am said:

Many books are in Malayalam Tamil Telugu …etc of rare Ayurveda books … please help to get pdf downloads which are translated to English.. Hindi Kannada etc

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Krishna on April 18, 2018 at 4:37 pm said:

Hi,

First of all a big hatsoff to the team.Thank you for the great collection.
I am not able to download the documents, as the mediafire link says the item is deleted. Please help here.

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- bharateeya on April 18, 2018 at 4:58 pm said:
  
  Krishna, I have replaced mediafire links of Meghaduta with archive.org links. You can download the ebooks now.
  
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Suman Banerjee. on April 24, 2018 at 7:01 pm said:

sir,kripa karke Dr.Jyotsana Mohan ji ka edited kavyaprakash ka Download link dijiye na sir.

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Ravi Shankar on October 13, 2018 at 5:27 pm said:

Megha Sandesha with translation by C. Shankara Rama Sastri. Please share this book if available. Thanks

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Amrutha. on January 9, 2019 at 12:16 pm said:

This a wonderful book the students who are studing require these kind of sources plz be publishing such kind of sources ….l loved it very much it was very beautifully described …..

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Amrutha. on January 9, 2019 at 12:17 pm said:

But i have a doubt from where did you get these informations?By reading it…or….

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Aditya Jha on March 8, 2019 at 2:23 am said:

I need shlokas of meghdootam purvamegh explained in Sanskrit

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Navendu Rai on June 27, 2019 at 3:33 am said:

Dear Sir,
I am searching for Hindi translation of Meghdoot in poetry form. Last I read it around 40 years ago in my father’s collection. Perhaps it was translated by Raja Laxaman Das. You have given details and links of these books in one of the early responses in this post but with time it seems these links aren’t functional any more.
May I request you to please provide link again.
Thanks a lot

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- bharateeya on June 27, 2019 at 12:05 pm said:
  
  Link to Meghaduta with Hindi verse translations of Raja Lakshman Singh and Purna.
  https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.327475/page/n165
  
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  - Navendu Rai on June 27, 2019 at 8:30 pm said:
    
    Sir,
    Thank you very much for the link.
    
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  - Sumedha on February 26, 2021 at 5:26 am said:
    
    Thank you so much for sharing this link 🙂
    
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suraj b y on September 22, 2019 at 6:34 am said:

Is there a source with line by line transliteration+translation to English of Meghadutam. Please share if found.

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Sreelatha on October 22, 2019 at 5:17 am said:

I need the sanskrit/Malayalam varnan of Ujjain in Meghadoot of Kalidasa

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- bharateeya on November 16, 2019 at 5:58 am said:
  
  What is the purpose?
  
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Sreelatha on November 16, 2019 at 5:53 am said:

I want the ujjain varnan in meghdoot in sanskrit in the form of prosemesa

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Sreelatha on November 16, 2019 at 5:54 am said:

I want the ujjain varnan in meghdoot in sanskrit in the form of prose

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Sunil Kumar on June 24, 2020 at 8:03 am said:

A very good English Translation. I was preparing for an assignment on Purvamegha of Meghduta and this translation helpled me a lot.

Thanks and warm regards…
Sunil Kumar
Somaiya Vidya vihar University Sanksrit Vidya Peetham, Mumbai, India

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Koshik karmakar on October 17, 2020 at 2:16 am said:

This is a very romantic poem it encourages the youths

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Navaneet on October 23, 2020 at 4:49 am said:

Where can I find Meghaduta translated by Devadhar, C.R.?

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Krishna rao on December 24, 2020 at 1:19 pm said:

Meghadootham translated to Malayalam by parameswar Kavi

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- bharateeya on December 24, 2020 at 1:54 pm said:
  
  Is it available in printe? Please share publication details.
  
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  - Krishna rao on December 24, 2020 at 4:45 pm said:
    
    It was printed I was told. But could not be located.
    
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    - bharateeya on December 26, 2020 at 6:34 pm said:
      
      Is it the following book?
      https://grandham.in/language/ml/books/dbe64da041813ce0
      മേഘസന്ദേശം
      കാളിദാസന്‍
      പരമേശ്വരന്‍ നമ്പൂതിരി മഠം (വിവര്‍ത്തകന്‍)
      രാമയ്യര്‍ എസ്‌. പുലിയന്നൂര്‍ (വ്യഖ്യാതാ)
      Publishers
      നാഷണല്‍ ബുക്ക് സ്റ്റാള്‍ (NBS)
      Pages 108
      Year 1966
      
      Reply ↓
      - ആദിത്യ സിംഹ രാഠൗര on August 15, 2022 at 11:38 am said:
        
        Chetta, nee patthu varshangal sesham ippolum ivide vannu? This shows your dedication for Kalidasa
Gowri shankar on May 21, 2021 at 4:35 pm said:

What is the name of the heroine that is the wife of yaksha??

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N .Ramachandran on June 15, 2021 at 1:42 am said:

I want to have a copy if the book .Please let me know where I can order

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- ആദിത്യ സിംഹ രാഠൗര on August 15, 2022 at 11:43 am said:
  
  If you understand Hindi you can order the Hindi version from Amazon. It is rated 4.3 out of 5
  
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- ആദിത്യ സിംഹ രാഠൗര on August 15, 2022 at 11:45 am said:
  
  By the way, Happy Indipendence Day
  
  Reply ↓
Radhakanta Barik on January 27, 2023 at 6:27 am said:

I want to read english version of uttara megha

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