TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF LOVE

Shakuntala a personification of love

Kalidas, one of the great dramatists of Indian classical literature bases his creations on the themes from epic history. Abhijnanasakuntalam, also known as Shakuntala, his best creation is taken from, The Mahabharata; although his creation deviates from its source at various places.

The play, which unfolds in seven acts and rich in creative imagination, best portrays the Indian philosophy of immortality of true love. Kalidas places his story in a mythic past where men are capable of moving with the Gods, and heavenly beings make love with the mortals. Two contrasting worlds, Shakuntala’s world of nature of pure love, and the King Dushayanta’s urban world of deceit, are put forth.

Kalidas initiates the characters attraction through lust. For Dushayanta, Shakuntala is an object of pleasure. And in the case of Shakuntala; Sage Kanva encounters Shakuntala in wilderness among śhakuntas (bird) hence the name, it is surrender to Dushayanta under the natural and irresistible impulse of youth. They consummate their love according to the moral and ethical values of the society, after Gandharva marriage. But it is the main characters mutual suffering as they pass through various trials put forth them that elevate their love from the physical charm to moral beauty. Kalidas does not provide the resolution in either of the two planes; world of nature or urban world, but takes the characters to a higher place that is inaccessible to mortals.

The author places their spiritual union at Sage Kasyapa’s hermitage; entering which Dushayanta is only deem fit after gaining the merits of protecting Indira in the war against the demons, and admits before Shakuntala; the daughter of Apsara Menaka and Sage Vishvamitra. Kanva’s hermitage; the place for characters physical union as well as Kasyapa’s hermitage are both holy places, signifying the importance of the unions.

Kalidas does not hold Dushayanta to fault, but points to the twist of fate and Shakuntala’s negligence for Sage Durvasa’s curse. It is the effect of the curse which blocks Dushayanta memory resulting in Shakuntala’s life of suffering bearing a fatherless child. Throughout the play, Shakuntala, child of nature, is perfectly happy amid nature and even after Dushayanta’s ill treatment; it is nature again which provides her solace in the form Sage Kasyapa’s hermitage.

At this juncture, the royal signet ring plays a very significant role in the play, as it is the only proof of Shakuntala’s marriage with Dushayanta. The fisherman finds the ring and presents it to Dushayanta. Kalidas advances the play showing for the first time Dushayanta in grief, as the re-emergence of the ring nullifies Durvasa’s curse resulting in Dushayanta remembrances of Shakuntala. Each passing moment heightens the anguish of separation. It is this turmoil that elevates Dushayanta’s physical love to the stature of moral love.   

True love and happiness is finally Shakuntala’s who after a life time of misfortunes; abandon at infancy by parents, husband’s failure to recognize and ascetics refusal to accept, finds contentment at the end of the play after reconciling with husband, King Dushayanta. It is finally happy ending for Shakuntala, with husband and son.   

Kalidas’s creation is a testimony to the height of romance and the lovesick hero and heroine passing through the tumultuous of relationship ultimately leading to victory of true love. No one has sung more beautifully about love between man and woman than Kalidas, which Rabindranath Tagore concurs, “Kalidas has shown that while infatuation leads to failure beneficence achieves complete fruition, that beauty is constant only when upheld by virtue, that the highest form of love is the tranquil, controlled and beneficent form, that in the regulation lies the true charm and lawless excess, the speedy corruption of beauty. He refuses to acknowledge passion as the supreme glory of love, he proclaim goodness as the final goal of love. ”