Shakuntala

For my clothing blog I often add relevant quotes from old Indian texts. As a result of this I have read (or in some cases partially read) more than a few translations hosted at gutenberg and archive.  One of these texts is Shakuntala, on which I blog quite often (check out the Chinese performance!). And though the story is extremely familiar to me, I am a little embarrassed that until my posts I had never read Kalidasa's Shakuntala in entirety though it is has been translated often and is a seminal text.

In fact the posts were a bit shaming and made me reflect a bit on the kind of English education that we so prize in India that many of us do not read Kalidasa, if not in Sanskrit at least in a regional language. Instead we rely on English texts, often translated by foreigners. And even if we are to go with English, we are still taught Shakespeare as a standard text though in more ways than one it is Kalidasa who is relevant to our culture and history. In fact Shakuntala's persistence makes it ideal for study, analysis and interpretation much like a play by the Bard.

From memory, Kosambi's book (Myth and Reality) states that the tale occurs as a fragment in the Rig Veda. Or at any rate in one of the Vedic texts and of course in the Mahabharata. In its earliest version, it has none of the embellishments of Kalidasa's tale. Rather it is merely an episode wherein a woman asserts her rights and makes a king accept paternity.  In Kalidasa's hands it of course turns into a classic romance (there is a first wife but let's not dwell on that here!). Shakuntala is a forest maiden, Dushyant is a handsome king.  There is a love affair, there is the loss of the ring (oh so soap opera), the rejection of Shakuntala and then the reunion.  Adding heft to this is the fact that Shakuntala and Dushyanta's son, Bharata, lends his name to the country.

It's later fame resulted from William Jones' translation that appeared in 1789, it's first outing in the West. Though it was hardly a forgotten text in India, Horace Hayman's Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus mentions that there are plenty of copies in circulation amongst the "pundits". Subsequently it seems to have enjoyed a good deal of popularity in the West. Not surprising given all the forest nymph bit, the romance and most of all the enduring nature of the tale which meant that it worked across mediums.  Gautier, for e.g.,  wrote a ballet, Sacountala. And it turns up at the oddest of places, including this 1914 production. On tumblr I have seen recent American school productions. Stage productions are still around. And of course Kalidasa's story, his descriptions, the poetry are still very much around us in Hindi films, albeit sometimes in a vulgarised form.

Given all this you would think that the tale is perfect for all kinds of study - from the original story to Kalidasa's treatment, its presence in modern Indian culture and it's interpretation by the West. Perhaps it is but I can't think of say my cousin's BA Lit including it at all.  More's the pity.

_*_

My fav Shakuntala here and here (especially since it mixes it with Ashadh Ka Ek Din).