It has been said the the Indian mind has a tendency to pursue each line of experience to its furthest point and to sound its ultimate possibilities. If there is one work that strikingly illustrates the truth of this observation, it is indeed the Kumarasambhava of Kalidasa. We find side by side therein the extremes of renunciation and surrender to pleasure. Only the Indian genius with its innate taste for the pursuit of the most opposite extremes could have produced such a masterpiece.

Kumara-sambhava: The Birth of Kumara, such is the title of the poem of Kalidasa, the renowned Sanskrit writer. Its subject is the marriage of Shiva and Parvati. Shiva is the ascetic God, the yogi lost in contemplation, indifferent to pain and desire. He is the Lord of concentration. He is the immobile and silent one, the witness or purusha. But when he unites with his opposite, with nature or prakriti, then he creates. Parvati is his other half, She without whom he would remain eternally unmanifest, She whose arms must enfold him to keep him on earth.