Sanskrit student brings the world oldest langauge to the world’s newest media
Kandali
A fourth-centrury poem by India’s greated classical writer Kalidasa has been brought to life in a new website by ANU 4th year student, Tomomi Sato.
The poem, Meghaduta, or ‘The cloud-messenger’ possibly India’s most famous love poem, is rich in geographic and environmental imagery.
In this highly innovative project, Ms Sato focussed on the twenty or so verses in which flowers or trees are mentioned by the poet. First, she translated each verse into English and Japanese. Next she researched the individual flowers and trees, and created her own water-colour ‘portraits’ of each. These were scanned and uploaded. Then she recorded herself singing the verses to a traditional melody, and these sound files have also been added to the website.
The whole project, including original Sanskrit verses, translations, artworks and audio files, can be visited at http://meghaduta.awardspace.info/