Introduction
1. The Vāg-Sūktam or hymn of the Word is one of the great poems of Origins in the Vedas; in it Vāc or Vāk, the creative Word (also meaning speech, voice), announces herself (the word is in the feminine) and speaks in images that combine power and beauty, of bringing the universe into being and establishing communion between human and divine. Vāc is the Śakti or inherent power of the creator as envisaged in the Ṛgveda.
2. Anon: The Sanskrit word for the ring finger is a-nāmikā (the nameless).
3. Bāṇa Bhatta, lived and wrote in the seventh century AD.
4. Kumarila Bhatta, the philosopher, AD 590–650 quotes two lines from Śakuntalā:1:20, in his Tantra-vārtika; cited in Nandargikar’s edition of Meghadūtam, 1893, Intro., p. 31.
5. The Aihole inscription AD 634 of Pulikesena II, the powerful Chalukyan monarch who ruled over what is now Maharāstra; the poet is here mentioned by name.
6. AV. 19:53, 54.
7. Śiva is the silence. Quoted from Śaiva sacred texts; see I. P. Radhakrishnan, vol II, p. 727.
8. Vāc is later personified as Sarasvatī (flowing waters), goddess of wisdom and eloquence and the patron deity of the arts. In the Vedas, the waters are the infinitude of potentialities which is the origin of the universe, the space-ocean that forms the waters of creation.
9. ‘The seers with wisdom searching within / discovered the bond of being in non-being.’ RV. 10:129:4.
10. ‘Let us in well-wrought songs proclaim the origin of the gods / that may be seen when chanted in the ages to come.’ RV. 10:71:1.
11. ‘I reveal the Father at the World’s highest peak.’ R V. 10:125:7.
12. Kalpanā, the poetic imagination, is the reflection of Māyā, the cosmic imagination; Māyā derived from the root ‘mā’, ‘to form, measure, display’, is the shaping power of the Supreme.
13. The caves in the low hills near Bhilsa (Vidiśā) and on the way to Sanci contain ancient rock-paintings and sculptured reliefs.
14. The Gangā was an important waterway with fleets of barges carrying merchandise up to Indra-prastha (Delhi) which was the last ford.
15. Rām: Sundara Kandam: canto 7.
16. Harṣa-charitram. ch. 6. See p. 192 of trans. by Cowell and Thomas.
17. Veda is literally wisdom; the Vedic texts are regarded as revelation.
18. RV. 10:108.
19. RV. 10:95.
20. RV. 10:125.
21. RV. 7:86.
22. RV. 10:100; the refrainis: ‘For our boon we ask for felicity full and boundless.’ And in 10:134: ‘The glorious Mother gave you birth, / the blessed Mother gave you birth’.
23. D.D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India, p. 199.
24. A.B. Keith, The Sanskrit Drama, pp. 36, 37.
25. NS. 1:44.
26. NS. 4:9,10.
27. NS. 4:13,14.
28. Sūta in Sanskrit.
29. Kuśi-lavas are bards, singers, actors.
30. These recitations have continued right to this day, performed in temples and village squares; the Sanskrit texts are explained in the vernaculars and the message expounded in simple language, and often accompanied by music and dance; such recitals are called Hari-Kathā or Kathā-Kalakṣepa. In Madhya Pradesh, the Pandavani is a re-telling by one or more persons with musical and drum accompaniments, of episodes from the Pāndava story in the epic Mahābhārata.
31. Indus Valley Civilization, circa 3000 BC; the figures are housed in the National Museum, Delhi.
32. Matthew Arnold writes in The Function of Criticism, p. 4. (Everyman’s): ‘. . . for the creation of a master-work of literature, two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment.’
33. Bharata-Nātya-Manjarī, G.K. Bhat, Intro., pp. liii-liv and NS. 2: 76–80.
34. The Woman-tree motif has a continuous history in Indian art and literature; beginning with the Indus Valley goddess amid the leaves of a tree, through the art of Bharhut, Sanci, Mathura and the recently excavated Sanghol sculptures down to the dreaming Gyaraspur Vṛkṣakā (Gwalior Museum).
35. Rātri Sukta: RV. 10:127
36. Araṇyānī Sukta. RV. 10:146
37. RV. 10:85
38. Pṛthvī Sūkta. AV. 12:1
39. It is difficult to sustain an argument that nothing in the way of long poems was composed after the epic period, until we get to Aśvaghosa and Kālidāsa. But nothing has survived. A few stanzas from Pāṇiṇi’s Jāmbavati-Vijaya and solitary stanzas from the works of other poets have survived, chiefly as quotations in other works.
40. He, covering the Earth on all sides
dwells within, in ten fingers’ space;
Puruṣa alone is all this:
What has been and what is to come,
The Lord of Immortality
and of that here which grows by food.
(RV: 10:90:2)
(Puruṣa is the Primal Being)
41. Corresponds to the present Holi Festival, though the dates are slightly different.
42. Mahākāla—Great Time or Sacred Time or Time projected onto a cosmic plane.
43. Umā (mother), Devi (shining one), Pārvatī (mountain-born), are all epithets given to Śakti, Śiva’s inherent shaping power.
44. Ananda-vardhana: Dhvanyāloka 1:8
45. Gunādhya’s Bṛhat-Kathā, The Great Story, is the earliest to be mentioned, but only late adaptations of it, of the ninth-tenth centuries survive, like the Kathā-Sarit-Sāgara. The story-cycles narrate the life and exploits of Udayana’s son; perhaps the Bṛhat-Kathā also contained the tales of King Udayana of Kauśambi referred to in Meghadūtam (32). These are probably part of the lost body of popular tales.
46. SB: 13:5:4:15
47. Puṣpa-danta, a gaṇa, or attendant of Śiva, is cursed and banished to earth as a mortal, because he overheard the Lord telling Pārvatī a story never told before, never heard before and recounted it to his own wife, who in turn repeated it to her mistress, Pārvatī, as a brand-new story. Pārvatī was angry and cursed Puṣpa-danta for overhearing a private conversation between herself and Śiva and for repeating it. She also cursed another gaṇa who interceded. Śiva out of pity set a period and a condition for the release of the two gaṇas and their return to Śiva-loka (Śiva’s world), which was for Puṣpa-danta to tell the same tale that he had overheard to a yakṣa cursed by Kubera to be born on earth as a goblin (pisāca). At the end of the tale, Puśpa-danta would be released from the curse and return to Śiva’s heaven and the yakṣa by telling the tale to the second cursed gaṇa would be also released from the curse and return to his celestial home. The third person in the frame-story (the second gaṇa) would be released from his curse when he published the tale to the whole world for every one to listen to. The tale told by all three, is the Bṛhat-Kathā and the author of it, Gunādhya, is the second gaṇa, the last to find release. Gaṇas are divine beings like yakṣas, gandharvas and apsarās. (Kathā-Sarit-Sāgara: ch. I)
48. Intro., translation of Śakuntalā by Laurence Binyon.
49. De and Dasgupta, History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 144.
50. Urvaśī: 3:19
51. Raghuvamśam, 8:32–95.
52. J.B. Chaudhuri mentions hundreds of Dūta-kāvyas as still existing: p. 12 of Intro. to his edition of Meghadūtam with Bharata Mallika’s commentary.
53. Nātyaśāstra, KS: 25:10–11
54. RV. 10:108
55. Mbh., 3:70: 18–31
56. Rām. Sundara Kandam. Hanumān shows Rāma’s signet ring to Sītā in canto 36.
57. As theriomorphic forms of divine effluence; e.g. Śiva’s Bull, Nandi, Skanda’s peacock. Such forms are believed to have the power of mediating between human and divine.
59. A conversation poem has an auditor who is silent but has a clear identity and fully characterized personality.
59. Kṛṣṇa-Yajur Veda, Maitrāyani Samhita. 1:10:13
60. The Purānas in the form we have them now might be later than Kālidāsa, but the material contained in them is of great antiquity; earlier versions have been edited and written over.
61. Sandhyā (the meeting point), the points in time when day and night meet.
62. His form is everywhere: all-pervading is His Śiva Śakti. Chidambaram is everywhere: everywhere His dance . . . . . . He dances with Water, Fire, Wind and Ether.
(Tirumūlar—The Vision of the Divine Dance)
63. The NS lists eight nāyikas (heroines); they represent the emotional state of a woman and the attitudes she adopts to her lover (husband): angry and scornful, jealous and quarrelsome, feeling betrayed and bitter, secure in her husband’s affections, waiting for her husband, all dressed to kill.
64. Certain words in the text indicate this: Śyāma is a young woman who has not yet given birth to a child; bālā is a young girl sixteen years of age (82); prathama-viraha (93) is the very first parting.
65. Wilson edition of The Cloud Messenger, 1843, fn. p. 14.
66. Ten stages in the emotional state of grief caused by separation from the loved one are described in the NS (24:160-62); the last being death.
67. Keats, Hyperion, 1:35–6
68 and 69. The enumeration of the ten stages in the NS is confusing, occurring as it does in a passage that is repetitive and obviously corrupt. They are: longing or craving, thinking or dwelling upon the beloved, recollection, enumeration of his virtues, anguish, lamentation, being distraught, sickness, stupor (withdrawal) and death. (KS. 24:160 ff & MNG 24:168 ff). The NS text characterizes these stages as the manner in which a maiden, inexperienced, expresses her emotional state—i.e. it treats of the stages of first falling in love if it remains unfulfilled. But two things have to be kept in mind:
(i) there are interpolations in the NS text and some verses way have been put in, modelled on descriptions of persons in love as portrayed in literature—the NS description as already noted, applies to a maiden falling in love and not of a woman grieving separated from her husband.
(ii) Bharata (the author of NS), has placed these descriptions in the chapter where he deals with histrionic representation of emotions—it is part of his aim to instruct actors how to portray emotional states. We should not view the enumeration of these ten states as describing how a woman ought to feel in a state of love-in-separation or of unfulfilled love.
70. Poetics as a formal discipline came later in the history of Sanskrit literary criticism. Drama was the form first to be treated.
71. Harisvāmin.
72. Reading between the lines of the SB text, the story was probably recited during the sacrifices but the SB being mainly a ritualistic text has just this cryptic indication; the story itself of Śakuntalā, the Apsarā who married the King of the lunar dynasty of Puru would have been part of the literary inheritance of Kālidāsa but unfortunately it is lost to us in its original form. We have only a very earthy version of it as one of the epic tales.
73. The Queen in Mālavikā.
74. The Queen in Urvaśī.
75. The Queens in Raghuvamsam.
76. The four aśramas or stages in a Hindu’s life are: Brahmacarya, the student’s, when a young man gets instruction and is trained and equipped for a profession (and perhaps also apprenticed to some trade in other cases); Gṛhastha, the householder’s, when the man gets married, manages his career and gets children; Vāna-prastha, retirement to the forest, a kind of retreat from an active life in the world; Śanyāsa, total abandonment of the world. The second aśrama or stage of life, the householder’s, is considered the most meritorious, because the person is in the world, doing good, helping others and generally sustaining society and the state.
Ṛtusamhāram (The Gathering of the Seasons)
1. This is one of the brilliant conceits in the poem, beautifully controlled and hinged on a single word—pales—pāndutā (paleness), in Sanskrit. The moon staring all night like some peeping-tom, at the lovely women sleeping on terraces, grows pale at the first light of dawn as if struck with guilty shame at being caught out staring secretly at other men’s wives. Other striking conceits are in sts. 24–26 and 3:7 where every adjective refers to the young girl as well as the night who are compared.
2. Mṛgatṛṣnā: literally the antelope’s parching thirst; signifies a mirage. The poet frames a whole stanza based on the etymology of this word without in the least looking pedantic.
3. Night grows imperceptibly longer day by day in autumn, like a young girl gradually growing into womanhood. The first three lines of the text are descriptive of the young girl (bālā—a girl just turned sixteen) and the autumn night, which it is not possible to convey in a translation, because each compound word that forms an adjective has to be split and separated differently to give the separate meanings. The moon is Night’s face; once it is free of clouds Night wears its radiance like a mantle; the young girl’s face is like the moon free of obscuring cloud. Moonlight is Night’s robe; the young girl wears a garment, silvery white like moon-light. The starclusters correspond to the girl’s jewels or to sparkling white flowers she adorns herself with. In both cases the beauties concealed within are gradually revealed. The word used for woman is pramadā, one who is exultant and aware of her youth and beauty and power to enchant men.
4. A brilliant word-picture brings sky and water together in an image drawn from a keen observation of nature. Fine emeralds when set, glow a very deep bluish-green. The waters of the pool reflect the deep, deep blue of clear autumn skies; but the dark blue is tinged with the dark green of the foliage at the water’s edge, and the exact shade of a fine emerald is caught. The spotlessly white swan floating on the waters like the moon floating in space completes this exquisite picture. Kālidāsa sees nature and woman with the eye of a painter and sets down what he sees with the skill of a great poet whose language is musical. He was probably a painter and musician. Those days, poets as well as rich and cultivated young men and women were accomplished in many arts.
5. Lover, invariably refers to the husband. Kālidāsa does not treat of illicit relationships. Ṛtusamhāram is a celebration of married love.
6. Fumigation to get rid of tiny pests like mosquitoes and the like.
7. This stanza is a good example of a distinctive feature of Kālidāsa’s style—the multi-layered image. A number of elements go into building this image: it is also an example of the interweaving of human emotion with nature’s beauty. Coral is usually shaded; so are the Aśoka’s cluster of blossoms, ranging from pale orange to scarlet depending on the age of the flower. The blossoms completely cover the branches and twigs to suggest branching coral—a forest of coral. The Aśoka grove wears the mysterious beauty of acoral reef. Kālidāsa was a much-travelled poet; in Raghuvamśam, he describes the pearl and coral fisheries of the deep south. The word used for coral here is vi-druma; druma is tree. Sanskrit is rich in synonyms and Kālidāsa’s choice of words is always dictated by the needs of the imagery, not by the exigencies of the metrical pattern. To give the latter as a reason for the choice of one word rather than another is to betray a lack of close reading of the text.
Both the trees in the Aśoka grove and the girls watching their beauty, are budding into youth; the delicate beauty of the leaf-shoots—pallava—suggests the fresh and delicate charm of young girls just stepping into womanhood. Poetic convention perceives the Aśoka blossom as one of the five flower-arrows of Kāma, god of love; and the girls are filled with vague stirrings of emotion. But the poet uses the convention in a fresh manner. The girls are filled with agentle sadness. The internal rhyme of a-śoka (free from sadness) which is the name of the flower and sa-śoka (filled with sadness) of the human emotion links the two words and sets them off against each other. The ‘tree of no sorrow’—Aśoka—induces not a real sorrow but the make-believe sadness of adolescence—nava-yauvana.
The compound word, vidruma-rāga-tāmram, is made up of three colour-words: coral-red-rich copper. Rāga, in addition, has the double meaning of redness of colour and of passion. The flowers are ‘impassioned’ and transmit their emotion to the nubile girls. Further it is the colour of the red Aśoka blossoms that attracts the bees, leading to pollination and fruiting. The flower-bee relationship symbolizes love and union.
Meghadūtam (The Cloud Messenger)
1. Prakṣaniyam = pra + īkṣaniyam, to view with eagerness, see intently; pra is a prefix that possesses the senses of ‘going forth’, as if the eye darts forward, and of intensity and excess. The word expresses the idea of seeing something striking or spectacular; it also suggests the viewing of a show, a spectacle or a play; prekṣāgṛha is a theatre. The speaker of the poem may therefore be seen as presented as a spectator, viewing a canvas that unrolls or a play presented on a stage. This is an interesting way of looking at the poem. (st. 2)
2. The unseen lady of the poem is first referred to as kāntā (st. 1), the beloved, a word derived from the root kam ‘to desire; to be enamoured of ’—a sexual undertone is present. Here, another aspect of the lover-beloved, yakṣa-yakṣi relationship is indicated by the use of the word dayitā, from the root meaning ‘to have sympathy, compassion’; companionship rather than a sexual relationship is conveyed.
3. Santapta—applies to the burning of the sun’s heat and the burning anguish of love and passion. The cloud gives relief from both, by providing shade and by heralding the return of the menfolk to their grieving women. In ancient India men who had to travel on business of various kinds invariably returned home at the onset of the monsoon.
4. Gandha in sa-gandha, has the double meaning of pride and kinship. The cātaka is kin to the cloud, because it drinks only rainwater, however thirsty; the disdain for any other water characterizes the bird as proud.
5. Mekhalā—girdle; it is also the name of a range of hills in the eastern part of the Vindhya mountains—the Maikal Hills.
6. Bhavatah—genitive form of the pronoun ‘you’ or more correctly ‘Your Honour’, qualifies both samyogam (union) and sneha-vyaktih (display of affection). A variant of the word in other recensions is bhavatā, the instrumental of the pronoun, meaning ‘with you’: this multivalence allows for more than one reading of the stanza; I give below the alternative rendering and lines 3, 4 of the stanza.
Kāle-kāle bhavati bhavatah yasya samyogam etya
sneha-vyaktih cira-virahajam muncato bāṣparn uṣṇam(12)
Note the wordplay of bhavati (becomes) and bhavatah (Your Honour’s).
Embrace and bid farewell to your loving friend,
this lofty peak in the Mekhalas, marked
by the holy feet of the Lord of Raghus
adored by the world: reuniting with whom time
and again your affection is displayed
by the fall of burning tears born of long separation.
In one case what results from the meeting of cloud and hill, is a shower of warm rain; in the other, the mists and vapours exhaled by the hill during the rains. To the reader of Sanskrit both meanings are present simultaneously.
7. Hālām abhi-mata-rasām Revatī-locānankām—‘the cherished wine marked by Revatī’s eyes’; the compound word Revatī-locānankām suggests a number of meanings: Revati’s eyes, amber or wine-coloured are reflected in the wine in the cup; the wine itself is the colour of her eyes; it produces the joy and exhilaration that Revati’s eyes did; and by implication, the yakṣa had to abandon, as BalaRāma did, the joys of drinking in the company of his beloved.
8. The actual confluence of the rivers Yamunā and Gangā is some 400 miles downstream at Prayag (Allahabad).
9. Tryambaka = tri-ambaka; ambaka has three meanings; the word therefore has three meanings: triple-eyed, Śiva’s Third Eye is the inner eye of wisdom; parent of the Triple-World; the Lord who utters the triple sound of the Primal Word OM—A-U-M. Śiva is known a Omkāra-nātha, the Lord whose form is OM.
10. Kuliśa means lightning, i.e. the sparks off Indra’s thunderbolt and also diamond, are hard, sharp and bright. In the latter meaning the sense we get is that the sharp and bright points of the diamond bracelets worn by the celestial maidens pricks the cloud and makes the water jet out. The former meaning that I have used in the translation seems more appropriate.
11. Jyotis-chāyā-kusuma-racanāni (variant racitāni—formed of) literally star-reflection-flower-forms; this word gives us and suggests the following: star-shaped flowers are strewn as decorations on the terrace-floors; star-shaped designs in brilliant gems decorate the terrace-floors, flower-shaped stars are reflected on the gem-inlaid terrace-floors, which because they are gem-inlaid sparkle like stars.
Abhijnānaśākuntalam (The Recognition of Śakuntalā)
1. Bard or rhapsode, also charioteer to the King; originally one of the seven persons in a kingdom who was closely associated with the choice and consecration of a king. For this reason, I have retained the Sanskrit word Sūta instead of charioteer. Sūtas were honoured persons; the most celebrated of charioteers in literature is Kṛṣṇa, who in the epic Mahābhārata, drives Arjuna’s chariot and preaches the Gītā on the battle-field.
2. The blackbuck is a very sacred animal; there is a close relationship in the play between Śakuntalā and the blackbuck; Śakuntalā’s purity and gentleness as well as her delicate beauty are suggested.
3. The lunar dynasty; see glossary under Puru.
4. Solar associations are present in this image; the chariot wheels of a universal monarch—cakra-vartī—roll over the whole earth (the known world) just as the sun’s wheel (the solar disc) rolls through space. The wheel is also associated with Buddha, who turned the wheel of a spiritual empire.
5. A significant phrase; Śakuntalā is pictured as a goddess of the woodland. For her associations with sylvan goddesses like yakṣis and guardians of sacred pools, see intro., section ix, 57–59.
6. Throbbing of the right arm in a man indicates the prospect of meeting a beautiful woman and love and marriage. Throbbing of the right eye or arm is a good omen in a man and of the left in a woman.
7. According to Manu a man should marry in his own class or below it; a woman in her own or in a class above her. If Śakuntalā’s parents were both of the Brahmin class, then she was hierarchically above the King who was a Kṣatriya (class of warriors and rulers). If her mother were not Brahmin, i.e. of the same class as the sage Kaṇva, she would not be a purebred Brahmin girl and the King could marry her. As it happens her real father was a Kṣatriya and hence named a royal sage, as Duhṣanta himself is in Act 2.
8. According to Manu concealing one’s true identity is reprehensible; on the other hand kings and high state officials often went around incognito to see for themselves how things were in the kingdom.
9. For the chase as a significant metaphor in the play, see ‘A Note on Texts and Translations’ of this book.
10. Misfortunes do not come singly.
11. The Sanskrit word kubja stands for a hunchback as well as an aquatic plant that bends and waves buffeted by the force of the current.
12. Hunting is one of the four most pernicious vices of the ten that kings are warned against, the other three being: drink, whoring and dicing.
13. A kind of crystal believed to glow and even catch fire when struck by the sun’s rays.
14. A sixth of all kinds of income and produce were paid into the treasury as taxes.
15. Sages inspired reverence as repositories of holiness, but they were also easy of approach (Durvāsā is an exception to the rule).
16. ‘The Concealer’—the demon of drought or darkness.
17. Indra and Agni are the two oft-invoked deities in the Ṛgveda.
18. See n. 9. The cakra-rakṣi is used for those warriors who rode by the side of the King’s war-chariot; lit. ‘protectors of the wheels’.
19. Lit. one who should live long.
20. A king who wished to go to heaven bodily and decided to perform sacrifices to ensure this. Viśvāmitra (Śakuntalā’s real father) undertook to officiate at these sacrifices, at the end of which Triśanku began to make his bodily ascent to heaven; the gods pushed him down and Viśvāmitra pushed him up with the result that Triśanku hung suspended in space between heaven and earth.
21. A prelude provides information about events not presented on the stage; a prelude may be brief like this one or long like the one in Act 4, where a number of events that have taken place over a length of time are recounted.
22. Man-matha—Churner of the mind; one of the many names for Love (Cupid).
23. See Glossary under Bodiless one.
24. Love; like the Greek Eros, the Indian god of love, Kāma, is associated with dolphins.
25. Refer to the Glossary.
26. Since she refers a few lines earlier to a song, Śakuntalā may at this point sing rather than speak these lines.
27. The King refers to his descent from the moon.
28. The secluded and well-guarded part of the palace which formed the residence of the queens.
29. A king who is paramount sovereign is said to be wedded to the earth.
30. Double meaning indicated here: (i) Śakuntalā is thinking of parental consent; (ii) she considers it disrespectful to place her feet on the lap of the King and whom she has chosen as husband.
31. The word Kumārī means a very young girl, one in her pre-teens, and also a virgin; in the context the second meaning is more appropriate.
32. See glossary.
33. A-mṛta, lit. deathless, i.e. the waters of immortality.
34. The two friends are not far and warn Śakuntalā. Sheldrakes—cakravāka and cakravākī—said to be parted at night because of a curse.
35. i.e. the prayers were accepted by the deity.
36. The eldest son of the Chief Queen becomes the Heir-Apparent.
37. These are two upper garments, one probably a veil and the other a kind of mantle.
38. This verse is reminiscent of a very celebrated one in the Vedas: ‘Madhuvāta ṛtāyate. . .’
39. Kaṇva’s message is subtly-worded; the King is expected to behave in a manner worthy of his noble lineage and keep his promises to Śakuntalā; he was chosen by her (by the Gāndharva rite), giving him her love freely without any pressure from family and friends; the King has esteemed the sage highly to contemplate marriage with his daughter; finally, Kaṇva is rich not in material goods as Duhṣanta is, but in holiness and self-restraint—a veiled reminder of the sage’s ‘holy power’.
40. St. 23 has an air of finality in closing the gate of the ‘green world’ to Śakuntalā; her return is placed in the distant future, when she and the King might return to the Hermitage in their last days, entering vāna-prastha, ‘retreat from the world’, the third stage in a Hindu’s life.
41. The Chamberlain like the court jester is a stock figure in drama.
42. Śeṣa, the Great Serpent that is believed to hold the earth up on its hood.
43. The old-fashioned umbrella, a cumbrous contraption with a long and heavy handle, is meant. It is carried by servants who held them over princes, nobles, the wealthy and whoever could afford a servant to perform this service.
44. The Sanskrit word for a spray of flowers is manjari, in the feminine; hence the feminine pronoun in the next line, which refers to the singer Hamsavatī whom he has loved and left; and it suggests the King’s love for another, Śakuntalā, which is already forgotten.
45. The lotus is described as vasati-matram, a one-night halt or mere stay overnight. In the Devanāgari recension, the King’s reply to Mādhavya’s query reads differently—‘She taunts me with spending all my time with Queen Vasumati. . .’ implying that the King’s interest in the crowned queen is in the nature of an enforced overnight stop.
46. A king’s conduct affects the well-being of his kingdom; the reverse is also true, that the King bears responsibility for offences committed in his kingdom, because he is the ruler and has to keep order.
47. The two ascetics are different in temperament and behaviour. Śārṇgarava is an irascible man and somewhat contemptuous of secular authority and of Brahmins who are hangers-on at the royal court. He is quick to anger but sympathetic. Śāradvata on the other hand is most unlikeable, cold and hard, rather sanctimonious; cleanliness of all kinds is very much on his mind. The three ascetics that Kālidāsa portrays with gentle irony, Durvāsā, Śārngarava and Śāradvata exemplify three undesirable qualities that ascetics above all others should not possess: Anger, pride and self-love.
48. These are formal greetings; it is important that the penances of sages should prosper and that a king needs all the good fortune he can have for he carries his life on the point of his sword.
49. A reference to the proverbial mismatching of married couples. Note that what Kaṇva’s pupil actually says to the King is totally different from the message that the sage had entrusted to him.
50. Śacī is Indra’s consort and Queen of the Immortals.
51. The teachings of Real-Politik.
52. Ancient methods of punishment.
53. Royal honours.
54. The Spring Festival in honour of Kāma, the god of love.
55. The Himālayas; Gauri is Śakti, Śiva’s consort or inherent power.
56. A ceremony performed in the third month of pregnancy to ensure that the child in the womb is a male.
57. The section of Act 5 beginning with the entrance of Caturikā with Śakuntalā’s portrait and ending with the King swooning is interesting for a couple of insights; and also important. Up to the receipt by the King of the letter about the shipwreck and death of a wealthy merchant who was childless, it is a re-enactment of the events of Act I—the initial meeting of the King and Śakuntalā. Duhṣanta seems almost to relive these events in an attempt to will a change in their course and outcome and wipe off the repudiation of his wife from his mind, until the comment of Mādhavya who has no use for illusions makes it impossible for the King to do so. The reenactment that the King attempts is also part of the process of penitence that leads to the restoration of wife and son. Recognizing the sorrow of childlessness and the danger to the kingdom and the dynasty left without an heir, the King swoons. And when he regains consciousness he is a new and better man and King.
58. I have translated the word here as missile for this reason: a certain class of weapons, arrows, discus, etc. were released after a charm or invocation was pronounced over it, directing it to a specific target. Similarly, another charm or sacred word was spoken to recall it; for this I have used the term ‘de-activate’.
59. The unitive godhead, Śiva-Śakti.
Appendix I
1. Intro. to the Vikramāditya-charita, Harvard Oriental Series.
2. D.C. Sircar, Ancient Malwa and the Vikramaditya Tradition.
3. Shermbavanekar: Date of Kalidasa, p. 233 J.U.B. Part VI, May 1933.
4. Ksetresachandra Chattopadhyaya, AUS Vol. II, 1926
5. Sakas or Scythians.
6. See intro.
7. Harsa-charitra, p.193, trans. Cowell and Thomas.
8. Kramrisch, The Art of India, pl. 22, 23
9. Known as dohada (see glossary under blossoming-time): referred to in Meghadūtam (77).
10. Pl. 74, p. 74, Mario Bussagli and Calembus Sivaramamurti, 5000 Years of the Art of India, See also ch. 4 on the art of Bharhut and Sanci.
11. Pl. 39, Kramrisch, op. cit.
12. National Museum, New Delhi.
13. Pl. 67, p. 64, The Art of India, Bussagli and Sivaramamurti.
14. Pl. 21, Kramrisch, op. cit.