Kalidasa's presence of mind

We enjoyed hearing this story from our esteemed Samskritham Professor Sridhar Bhattar recently at the Livermore ShivaVishnu Temple, California:

Long Long ago in the country ruled by Bhoja Raja, there lived a poor scholar who wanted to cash in on Bhoja Raja's love of Samskritham. He learnt the names of 27 stars in Samskritham and went to Poet Kalidasa and claimed that he knew Samskritham and wanted to impress Bhoja Raja.

Kalidasa recognized that the scholar was in need of monetary gifts from King and advised him to come to King's court in his best attire.

The next day, the scholar came all dressed up to the court. Kalidasa introduced him to the King as a great Samskritham scholar. The king welcomed him ceremoniously and invited him to sit in his throne as an honor. Then he requested that the scholar recite a few samskritham slokas for the benefit of the court.

The scholar started to recite the names of stars but forgot many of them since he was extremely tense in the presence of the King! He only was able to stutter out the following:

Ashwini
Punarvasu
Revati
Krittika


He then kept quiet. The king became angry at the apparent lack of scholarliness in the scholar. Kalidasa took pity on the poor scholar and explained away the brief recital with the following sloka:

Ashwini bhavatu bhoopa mantura
Mandiram bhavatu te punarvasu
Revatipati kanishta sevaya
Krittika tanaya parakramo bhava

The sloka means the following:

Kalidasa told the king that the scholar actually wished him with a lot of good things as follows:

Let your stable be full of horses (Ashwa)!
Let your treasure chest be blessed with repeated wealth!
If you pray to the younger brother of the husband of Revati (Krishna is the younger brother of Balaram who is the husband of Revati), you will be blessed with the valor like that of Kartikeya (Son of Krittikas).

The king was satisfied with Kalidasa's explanation and rewarded the scholar plentifully.