by Kalidasa
‘According to those who ought to know, a son
Is the man himself reborn.
So a man thinks of his son’s mother
As his own. His wife’s son
Is his own face in a mirror.
Gazing on him, he’s euphoric—
A saint reaching heaven.
Suffering men, consumed by heart’s sorrow,
Rejoice in their wives, as the parched
Drink water. However provoked, the wise man 50
Says nothing to offend a woman,
In her he sees his love, his joy, his merit.
Women are the eternal, sacred field of being—
Who, even among seers,
Can produce children without them?
What greater joy for a man than a little son,
Who plays in the dust,
Then covers him in grubby kisses?*
‘So why do you scorn that child,
Who has come to you freely
And looks at you with love?
Ants carry their eggs and never break them—
Yet you, who are versed in the Law,
Can’t bear your own son?
The feel of a dress, of a lover, 55
Of water, are none of them sweeter
Than the touch of a son.
Among humans, brahmins are best;
Among beasts, the cow;
Of those due respect, the guru is greatest;
And of what can be touched, a son.
‘Hug this handsome son of yours!
There is nothing better in the earth or on it
Than the touch of your very own son.
For three long years I bore this boy
To destroy your sorrow.
Then, at his birth, a voice from the sky called to me:
“A hundred times he’ll sacrifice the horse.”*
‘Why, men who’ve been no further than the next village 60
Return and take their sons onto their laps with love,
Nuzzle their heads, and thrill with joy.
Brahmins, as you know,
Recite these Vedic verses
At birth rites for their boys:
Limb by limb you come into being,
Out of my essence you are born,
You are myself, though called my son—
Live for a hundred years!
My nurture depends on you alone,
Through you alone my line endures.
So be happy, be happy my son,
And live for a hundred years !
‘He was born from your body:
A man from a man.
Look on my son as your second self,
A reflection in a pellucid pond.
Just as the fire for the offerings 65
Is kindled from the household fire,
So he is born from you,
And what was single is doubled.
‘Once, king, when I was young,
And you were out hunting,
You followed a deer to my father’s retreat,
Where I was then living …
Urvaśī, Pūrvacitti, Sahajanyā, and Menakā,
Viśvācī and Ghṛtācī are the six supreme
Celestial nymphs. Of those,
It was the beautiful Menakā,
Brahmā’s daughter, who came from heaven
To earth, and bore me by Viśvāmitra.
That nymph gave birth to me in the high Himālayas,
Then discarded me and disappeared—
I might have been a stranger’s child.
‘What evil deeds I must have done 70
In other lives, to be abandoned by my kin
In infancy, and now again by you!
If you’re determined to disown me,
I’ll return to the hermitage,
But this child, you should not forsake—
For he is your very own son.’
Duṣyanta replied:
‘I do not know, Śakuntalā, that you’ve given birth
To any son of mine. Women are liars—
Who can believe a word you say?
We’re expected to think that Menakā,
Your mother, was a compassionless whore
Who cast you off like a bleached garland
On a Himalayan peak?
That Viśvāmitra, your unfeeling father,
The prince who made himself into a brahmin,
Was a libertine, whose real business was lust?
‘Menakā is the greatest of the celestial nymphs, 75
Your “father” the greatest of seers—
And you say you’re their child,
When you speak like a slut?
‘Aren’t you ashamed to utter
Such brazen drivel, and before my face?
Disappear, bogus ascetic!
What have a dreadful seer and a nymph
Like Menakā to do with you—
A wretch disguised as a nun?
‘As for your boy, he’s far too big—
So strong, and yet still a child?
Did he shoot up like a rampant weed,
Overnight?
‘You must have been born in the gutter—
You certainly look like a slut to me!
And you claim to have been Menakā’s love child?
Nothing you say makes sense, “ascetic”. 80
You mean nothing to me. Just go—
Who cares where, apart from you?’
Śakuntalā replied: 1.69.1
‘You can see a fault like a mustard seed
In someone else, but in yourself,
Sins large as pumpkins go through on the nod.
Menakā is pre-eminent among the thirty gods—*
That makes me better born than you!
You are tied to the earth, Duṣyanta,
I wander the skies: I am Mount Meru
To your grain of sand. The palaces of the mighty—
Indra, Kubera, Yama, and Varuṇa—*
Are my second home and stamping-ground,
Such is my power!
What I have to tell you is simple and true: 5
I do it to instruct you, faultless king,
Not to spite. Be patient.
Listen:
‘As long as he doesn’t face himself
In the mirror, a repulsive man thinks,
“I’m better than the common crowd”,
But in a glass, he sees at once
It’s really ugliness that marks him out.
Most handsome in a man
Is never to think badly of others;
The gossip, on the other hand, is just a step
From foul-mouthed slander.
A fool, hearing the world’s chatter—
Good and evil mixed,
Snaffles up the evil,
Like a pig truffling ordure.
The wise man discriminates: 10
Hearing chatterers rake through good and bad,
He picks out the good—a goose
Siphoning milk from water.*
As much as it pains the virtuous
To criticize others, so the bad
Enjoy it. Just as the good
Take delight in speaking well of their elders,
So fools amuse themselves, traducing the decent.
Fools try to find out
Others’ faults—better by far
To be unaware.
When men speak ill of the good,
It’s the fool who tags along behind, saying:
“He’s my enemy too!”
What could be more ludicrous
Than sinners slandering the good?
Forget the devout, even atheists 15
Recoil from the man who cares nothing for truth,
As though they’d seen a poisonous snake,
About to strike.
‘The man who refuses recognition
To the son he’s fathered as his equal,
Shall see the gods destroy his fortune,
And never reach the heavenly kingdoms.
For the ancestors call a son
The family line’s support,
The apogee of universal order—
Never, never abandon a son!
Fathers of sons earn the respect
Due to a man who’s done his social duty—
Sons swell the love in their father’s hearts,
And ferry their ancestors out of hell*
On the raft of filial devotion.
‘Tigerish king, if you would preserve 20
The truth, the Law, and yourself,
Don’t abandon your son!
Lionlike lord, don’t stoop to deceit!
A pond is better than a hundred wells,
A sacrifice better than a hundred ponds,
A son better than a hundred rites,
But truth—truth counts for more than even a hundred sons.
‘If a thousand horse sacrifices and a true word
Were put in the balance: the word would be heavier.
Learning the entire Veda,*
And bathing at every sacred ford,
May or may not be its equal,
But nothing exceeds the truth—
No higher law is known to man.
And there is nothing more corrosive on earth
Than a lie.
Truth, king, is the Supreme Reality, 25
The highest rule of life.
Don’t abandon that rule, my lord:
Don’t abandon your ally!
‘But if you must cling to your lie,
If you can’t, of your own accord,
Believe me,
Then I shall leave you.
For there’s no keeping company
With your kind of man.
But with or without you, Duṣyanta,
My son shall rule this four-cornered earth,
With the king of the mountains,
The Himālaya itself, as his crown!’
So Śakuntalā ended, and left.
Then, out of the sky, a voice addressed Duṣyanta
As he sat in his court:
‘The mother carries the father’s life-giving water—*
It is the father who begets the son.
Treasure your son, Duṣyanta—
A fertile son saves from the house of Death. 30
Don’t repudiate Śakuntalā,
She spoke the truth:
You seeded her womb.
‘A wife splits her body to give birth to a child
Therefore, Duṣyanta, treasure Śakuntalā’s son,
Or welcome disaster!
What man alive would abandon
A living boy, born from himself?
Paurava, treasure Duṣyanta and Śakuntalā’s
Great son. He shall be called “Bharata”, “Sustained”,*
Since you must sustain him!’
Delight was the Paurava king’s reaction
To this decree from the gods.
Turning to his chaplain and ministers he said:
‘Mark, sirs, what this emissary of the gods 35
Has spoken. I, too, knew very well
This was my son. But had I recognized him
On nothing but his mother’s word,
He would never have been free
Of the people’s suspicion.’
So the king, prompted by the gods,
Made doubt redundant and received his son
With happiness and joy—kissed his head,
Hugged him with love—
While brahmins gave him a brahmin welcome
And bards sang songs of praise.
At the touch of his son, the king
Was enraptured,
But, knowing his duty to his wife,
He honoured her as she deserved,
And made this soothing speech:
‘Our union was hidden from the people; 40
That’s why I debated, my queen,
To clear you of blame. Otherwise,
They might have said some woman I’d seduced
Was using me to ease her son onto the throne.
That’s why I argued.
And if you have spoken to me harshly,
In anger, I know how much it came from love,
And I forgive you, freely, my sweet wife.’
Saying this to his beloved queen,
King Duṣyanta honoured her with clothing,
Food, and drink. Then he named
His son by beautiful Śakuntalā, ‘Bharata’,
And anointed him his designated heir.
So the glorious chariot wheel 45
Of great-souled Bharata
Rolled about the echoing world—
Huge, radiant, divine, unconquered.
He defeated the lords of the earth,
And made them his vassals;
He lived a just life, and attained high fame.
He was king and emperor,
Glorious monarch of the spreading earth,
Lavish in his sacrifices, an Indra,
A lord of the whirling winds.
Like Dakṣa, he had KAṆVA perform a sacrifice*
Priced at a thousand, thousand cows.
From Bharata flowed the fame of the Bhāratas,
From Bharata the Bhārata line,
And all the ancients famed as Bhāratas, 50
Godlike and powerful,
Truth-telling kings.*
EXPLANATORY NOTES
THE RECOGNITION OF ŚAKUNTALĀ BY KĀLIDĀSA
The primary purpose of these notes is to explain Indological references to the non-expert reader, although a general understanding of the play is by no means dependent upon them. They are not intended to provide a thematic commentary; for some general remarks of that kind, see the Introduction.
Prologue
Goethe, a great enthusiast for Śakuntalā, was so impressed by this device that he borrowed it for the opening of his Faust, Part One.
Benediction: because it is a blessing, the benediction could only normally be spoken by a brahmin. If the Actor-Manager of the troupe was qualified in this respect, then he would have done it, as a brahmin; only after he had spoken it would he have gone into character as the ‘Actor-Manager’ in the play. (Numeration of verses follows Kale’s edition of the Devanāgarī recension; verses followed by a letter (e.g. 14a) indicate material he prints in his notes (often identical with the Bengali recension) but excludes from his main text.)
eight … Śiva: i.e. eight visible forms of the great Hindu god Śiva. In the original playhouse this benediction would have marked the end of a series of lengthy ritual preliminaries to the performance. See David Gitomer, ‘The Theater in Kālidāsa’s Art’, in B.S. Miller (ed.), The Theater of Memory: The Plays of Kālidāsa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 65 ff.
the curtain: i.e. looking towards the green room. See section on ‘Staging and Stage Conventions’ in the Introduction.
Ravished… away: this is what aesthetic rapture is supposed to do to the audience, and will do to the king—obliterate everything else, including memory.
Duṣyanta: for the sake of consistency, I have used this form of the king’s name throughout both the play and the Mahābhārata episode. Some manuscripts, and the critical edition of the Mahābhārata (which I have altered in this translation), use the Sanskrit form ‘Duḥṣanta’.
Act 1
Śiva … the chase: in a well-known myth, Śiva, taking revenge for his exclusion from the gods’ sacrifice (also known as ‘Daksa’s sacrifice’), disrupts the ritual and hunts down the sacrifice, which has fled away in the form of a deer. See Stella Kramrisch, The Presence of Śiva (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 322–40.
Darbha grass:= kusha, a type of grass frequently used in sacrificial rituals.
Indra’s steeds: Indra is the king of the gods in the early Vedic hymns and in post-Vedic mythology. In terms of religious significance, however, Śiva, Viṣṇu, and the Goddess are the great deities of c
lassical Hinduism. The king will actually be riding a chariot drawn by Indra’s horses in Act 7.
Puru’s race: Puru is the progenitor of the Lunar Dynasty to which Duṣyanta belongs (see next note).
Lunar Dynasty: with the Solar, one of the two great dynasties of ancient India according to Hindu mythology.
a son … to rule the world: a ‘world-emperor’ or cakravartin (‘wheel-turning monarch’), a ruler whose divine powers and influence are reflected in his physical appearance. See the king’s description of his son (p. 95), whose birth fulfills this prophetic wish. Cf. ‘Śakuntalā in the Mahābhārata’, pp. 124f.
Somatītha … fate: Somatīrtha is a pilgrimage site on the coast of Gujarat, associated with the moon (Soma), and distant enough to keep kaṇva out of the way until Act 4. Cf. ‘Śakuntalā in the Mahābhārata’, p. 116, where kaṇva is simply gathering fruit outside the hermitage, necessitating a lightning seduction. We are never told the precise nature of Śakuntalā’s ‘hostile fate’, but it seems to be a precognition of Durvāsas’s curse in Act 4. If so, Kaṇva’s pilgrimage seems to have been, at best, only partially successful.
iṅgudi nuts: pounded by forest-dwelling ascetics to produce oil for lamps and medicinal ointments.
bark garments: traditional ascetic dress, as complained of by Śakuntalā (pp. 11 f.).
ghee: clarified butter used in rituals.
this vein … woman’s charm: a throbbing right arm is an omen of an erotic encounter for a man, perhaps leading to marriage.
‘sweet talker’: the literal meaning of Priyaṃvadā’s name.
jasmine … as her bridegroom: so the bride has chosen the bridegroom, a form of marriage permissible for princesses (Śakuntalā is a royal sage’s daughter). Cf. p. 51.
woman of a different class: if Śakuntalā’s parents are both of the brahmin class, then she too must marry a brahmin. That would make her ineligible for the king, who belongs to the princely or warrior class. However, since her real father was Viśvāmitra, a royal sage, she too is really of the princely class, and the king’s fears are ungrounded, as he discovers below.
