Kalidasa's date

[N. Ganesan]

While browsing Dr. Koenraad Elst's paper on Indian astronomy,
kindly provided by Dr. S. Kalyanaraman, Elst argues for pushing back
Kalidasa's date by about 5 centuries. Elst also talking of
putting back Gupta age by few centuries, the available material
may not allow that. I have heard that Kalidasa could not have come
after Asvaghosha's works.

Does Kalidas quote Dinnaga? Is Dinnaga late, too late for Kalidasa?
What is the "standard" academic date of Kalidasa and Dignaga?
Is it so hard to narrow down Kalidasa's date to within one/two
centuries, rather than 7-8 centuries?

Many thanks,
N. Ganesan

PS: Not only Kalidasa is radical by name, he also brings Southern
poetic traditions into full flowering in Sanskrit. George Hart's
thesis and book: Realations bet. IA and Dravidian literatures
says that Tamil sangam poetry traditions and Hala's saptasati
are the first love poems in India. This poetics describing
love situations, first available from the Dravidian South,
is used effectively by the great Kalidasa.



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