Tales from the Hindu Dramatists | Page 3

king consents, and when Sakuntala is
following the priest, Menaka with her irradiant form appears and taking
hold of her daughter vanishes and goes to a celestial asylum. Everyone
present there is astonished and frightened.
After this incident, one day while the king is out on inspection, a
certain fisherman, charged with the theft of the royal signet-ring which
he professes to have found inside a fish, is dragged along by constables
before the king who, however, causes the poor accused to be set free,
rewarding him handsomely for his find.
Recollection of his former love now returns to him. His strong and
passionate love for Sakuntala surges upon him with doubled and
redoubled-force.
Indulging in sorrow at his repudiation of Sakuntala, the king passes
three long years; at the end of which Matali, Indra's charioteer, appears
to ask the king's aid in vanquishing the demons. He makes his aerial
voyage in Indra's car. While he is coming back from the realm of Indra,
he alights on the hermitage of Maricha.

Here he sees a young boy tormenting a lion-whelp. Taking his hand,
without knowing him to be his own son, he exclaims:--"If now the
touch of but a stranger's child thus sends a thrill of joy through all my
limbs, what transports must be awakened in the soul of that blest father
from whose loins he sprang!"
From the vaunting speeches of the boy, the king gathers that the boy is
a scion of the race of Puru. His heart everflows with affection for him.
A collection of circumstantial evidence points the boy to be his son.
The amulet on the boy indicates his parentage.
But while he is in a doubtful mood as to the parentage of the refractory
boy, he meets the sage Maricha from whom he learns everything. The
name of the boy is Sarvadamana, afterwards known as Bharata, the
most famous king of the Lunar race, whose authority is said to have
extended over a great part of India, and from whom India is to this day
called Bharata or Bharatavarsa (the country or domain of Bharata.)
Soon after, he finds and recognises Sakuntala, with whom he is at
length happily re-united.

VIKRAMORVASI OR URVASI WON BY VALOUR
OR
THE HERO AND THE NYMPH.
In the Himalaya mountains, the nymphs of heaven, on returning from
an assembly of the gods, are mourning over the loss of Urvasi, a
fellow-nymph, who has been carried off by a demon. King Pururavas
enters on his chariot, and on hearing the cause of their grief, hastens to
the rescue of the nymph. He soon returns, after having vanquished the
robber, and restores Urvasi to her heavenly companions. While
carrying the nymph back to her friends in his chariot, he is enraptured
by her beauty, falls in love with her and she with her deliverer. Urvasi
being summoned before the throne of Indra, the lovers are soon obliged
to part. When they part, Urvasi wishes to turn round once more to see

the king.
She pretends that a straggling vine has caught her garland, and while
feigning to disengage herself, she calls one of her friends to help her.
The friend replies:--
"I fear, this is no easy task. You seem entangled too fast to be set free:
but, come what may, defend upon my friendship." The eyes of the king
then meet those of Urvasi. They now part.
The king is now at Prayag, the modern Allahabad, his residence. He
walks in the garden of his palace, accompanied by a Brahman who is
his confidential companion, and knows his love for Urvasi. The
companion is so afraid of betraying what must remain a secret to
everybody at court, and in particular to the queen, that he hides himself
in a retired temple. There a female servant of the queen discovers him,
and 'as a secret can no more rest in his breast than morning dew upon
the grass,' she soon finds out from him why the king is so changed,
since his return from the battle with the demon, and carries the tale to
the queen. In the meantime, the king is in despair, and pours out his
grief. Urvasi also is sighing for him. She suddenly descends with her
friend through the air to meet him.
Both are at first invisible to him, and listen to his confession of love.
Then Urvasi writes a verse on a birch-leaf, and lets it fall near the
bower where her beloved reclines.
Next, her friend becomes visible, and at last, Urvasi herself is
introduced to the king. After a few moments, however, both Urvasi and
her friend are called back by a messenger of the gods, and the king is
left alone with his jester. He looks for the leaf on which