Tales from the Hindu Dramatists | Page 2

He is at first at a loss to extricate himself from this difficulty but a
thought strikes him and he acts upon it. He sends the jester as his
substitute to the city. He is now at leisure to seek out the love-sick
Sakuntala who is drooping on account of her love for the king and is
discovered lying on a bed of flowers in an arbour. He comes to the
hermitage, overhears her conversation with her two friends, shows
himself and offers to wed her. For a second time, the lovers thus meet.
He enquires of her parentage to see if there is any obstacle to their
being united in marriage; whereupon Sakuntala asks her companion
Priyambada to satisfy the king with an account of her birth. The king
hearing the story of her birth asks the companion to get the consent of
Sakuntala to be married to him according to the form known as
gandharva.
Sakuntala requests the king to wait till her foster-father Kanwa, who
had gone out on a pilgrimage, would come back and give his consent.
But the king, becoming importunate, she at last gives her consent. They
are married according to the gandharva form, on the condition that the
issue of the marriage should occupy the throne of Hastinapur. She
accepts from her lord a marriage-ring as the token of recognition.
The king then goes away, after having promised to shortly send his
ministers and army to escort her to his Capital. When Kanwa returns to
the hermitage, he becomes aware of what has transpired during his
absence by his spiritual powers, and congratulates Sakuntala on having
chosen a husband worthy of her in every respect. Next day, when
Sakuntala is deeply absorbed in thoughts about her absent lord, the
celebrated choleric sage Durvasa comes and demands the rights of

hospitality. But he is not greeted with due courtesy by Sakuntala owing
to her pre-occupied state. Upon this, the ascetic pronounces a curse that
he whose thought has led her to forget her duties towards guests, would
disown her.
Sakuntala does not hear it, but Priyambada hears it and by entreaties
appeases the wrath of the sage, who being conciliated ordains that the
curse would cease at the sight of some ornament of recognition.
Sakuntala becomes quick with child and in the seventh month of her
pregnancy is sent by her foster-father to Hastinapur, in the company of
her sister Gautami, and his two disciples Sarngarva and Saradwata.
Priyambada stays in the hermitage. Sakuntala takes leave of the sacred
grove in which she has been brought up, of her flowers, her gazelles
and her friends.
The aged hermit of the grove thus expresses his feelings at the
approaching loss of Sakuntala:--
"My heart is touched with sadness at the thought, "Sakuntala must go
to-day"; my throat is choked with flow of tears repressed; my sight is
dimmed with pensiveness but if the grief of an old forest hermit is so
great, how keen must be the pang a father feels when freshly parted
from a cherished child!"
Then he calls upon the trees to give her a kindly farewell. They answer
with the Kokila's melodious cry.
Thereupon the following good wishes are uttered by voices in the air:--
"Thy journey be auspicious; may the breeze, gentle and soothing, fan
the cheek; may lakes, all bright with lily cups, delight thine eyes; the
sun-beam's heat be cooled by shady trees; the dust beneath thy feet be
the pollen of lotuses."
On their way, Sakuntala and her companions bathe in the Prachi
Saraswati, when, as Fate would have it, she carelessly drops the ring of
recognition into the river, being unaware of the fact at the time. At last

they arrive at Hastinapur, and send words to the king.
The king asks his family priest Somarata to enquire of them the cause
of their coming. Whereupon the priest meets them at the gate, knows
the objects of their coming and informs the king of it. The curse of
Durvasa does its work. The king denies Sakuntala. At the intercession
of the priest, she and her companions are brought before the king. The
king publicly repudiates her. As a last resource, Sakuntala bethinks
herself of the ring given her by her husband, but on discovering that it
is lost, abandons hope. Sarnagarva sharply remonstrates against the
conduct of the king and presses the claim of Sakuntala.
Gentle and meek as Sakuntala is, she undauntedly gives vent to her
moral indignation against the king. The disciples go away saying that
the king would have to repent of it.
Sakuntala falls senseless on the ground. After a while, she revives, the
priest then comes forward and asks the king to allow her to stay in his
palace till her delivery. The