13 Jun 2010

King Vikramaditya's Navaratnas

Posted by Priyanka in General | 2:10am


Have you heard of Navaratnas, the court of Samudragupta II or Vikramaditya. Here is an effort to list them all.


1. KALIDAS
Kalidas is one of the nine Ratnas in the court of king Vikramaditya and the famous one too. He is a great poet of Sanskrit.

He has written 3 famous plays and 4 epic poems. Plays are
1) Malavikaagnimitra ( Malavika and Agnimitra )
2) Veramorvashiya ( The story of Urvashi and Pururavas )
3) Abhigyanashakuntala ( Shakuntala )

This book is translated into many foreign languages, first into English and then to German apart from many Indian languages.

The four epic poems are:
1) Kumarasambhavam : The story of the marriage of Shiva with Parvati.
2) Raghuvamsha
3) Meghaduta

The fourth one is not known.

2. DHANVANTARI :
He was an early Indian medical practitioner and one of the first surgeons of this world. He is regarded as the source of Ayurveda. He found the antiseptic properties of turmeric and the preservative properties of salt. He is the pioneer of the plastic surgery. He performed the surgeries without anesthesia.

3. AMARA SIMHA :

He was a Sanskrit grammarian and poet. His famous works are AMARAKOSHAM meaning immortal treasure to immortal dictionary. Another one is NAMALINGANUSHASANA instructs about nouns and genders. It is a thesaurus of Sanskrit.

4. SHANKU :

Expert in geography.

5. KSHAPANAK :

Prominent astrologist who has achieved prominence in astrology.

6. GHAT KANPAR :

Expert in sculpture and architecture.

7. VETAL BHATT :

Expert in black magic and tantric sciences.

8. Varaha Mihir

He was Indian astronomer, Mathematician and Astrologer who lived in Ujjain. He made important contributions to Mathematics and also Astrology. His main work is Pancha Siddantika on Mathematical Astronomy. It is a compendium of Greek, Egypt, Roman and Indian astronomy. His next work is Brihat-Samhita. Also famous is his Brihat-Jataka.

9. Vararuchi

He was a poet and grammarian.
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