Stitt
Shakuntala Lecture
Fall 2007

Goals:
1) Introduce the Indic world (from the Mauryan Empire)
2) Introduce Indian drama in general and rasa in specific
3) Contextualize the play
4) Give an overview of the drama with regard to structure and the use of rasa

The Context

The play is a retelling of an ancient fairytale, although its immediate source is the Mahabharata. The play was intended for a courtly venue, and one of Kalidasa's goals is to invoke rasa. This emotional state is achieved in part through music and dance, but largely through storytelling and the spoken word. Kalidasa blends narrative -- storytelling -- with lyrical passages of great power. One must pay close attention to the playwright's use of words and images. Inevitably, much is lost in translation, but as any good translation will, this one captures the essence of the play and, if some elements are lost, the translator introduces new, parallel effects to make up for the loss.

Shakuntala is one of the few works of Indian literature to have had significant impact on Western writers. Sir William Jones translated the play into English in 1789. Its interplay of nature and culture appealed to the Romantics, perhaps most notably Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He acknowledged his indebtedness to Kalidasa in his introduction to his great masterpiece, Faust. Goethe also wrote of the play:

Willst du die Blüthe des frühen, die Früchte des späteren Jahres,
Willst du, was reizt and entzückt, willst du was sättigt and nährt,
Willst du den Himmel, die Erde, mit Einem Namen begreifen;
Nenn’ ich, Sakuntala, Dich, and so ist Alles gesagt.
                                              -- J. W. von Goethe

(Do you want the blossoms of springtime and the fruits of its aging;
Do you want what enraptures and enchants,what fills and feeds;
Do you want Heaven and Earth, held in a single name?
I name You, Shakuntala, and all is said.
                                              -- J. M. Stitt, trans.)

ACT ONE

I. Kalidasa, a worshipper of Shiva, begins the play with a verse that embodies the god.

II. Prologue
    A. The tone of the prologue sets the tone of the play -- a pleasant, even humorous lightness that
         nonetheless will deal with serious matters -- what a Chaucerian scholar later would call "serious          play."
    B. The director begins by calling for a description of nature -- the early summer -- in lyrical terms that
         begin with nature (water and wind) and end with the hint of the human (dreaming)
    C. The actress extends the direction of the metaphor:
                     Sensous women
                     in summer love
                     weave
                     flower earrings
                     from fragile petals
                     of mimosa
                     while wild bees
                     kiss them gently.
         1. She describes summer in terms of the actions of "sensous women," but keeping the natural
              imagery of flowers and bees. Images of the bee are interlaced throughout the play.
         2. Note the ambiguous pronoun "them" -- do bees kiss the flowers or the women?
     D. The director is carried away by emotion:
                     The mood of your song's melody
                     carried me off by force,
                     just as the swift dark antelope
                     enchanted King Susyanta.
         1. Kalidasa reminds his audience of the intent of achieving rasa.
         2. He segues smoothly into the story

III. Unable to literally place a buck and speeding chariot on stage, Kalidasa evokes the image verbally
     -- down to the rough ground over which they race.

IV. While King Dusyanta is not averse to killing the buck, the acetics are vegetarians and opposed to
     killing any animal. Dusyanta respectfully dismounts and removes his hunting gear before entering
     entering the acetics' grove. As he enters he experiences an omen of love.

V. He sees young female ascetics, and likes what he sees:
                    These forest women have beauty
                     rarely seen inside royal palaces --
                     the wild forest vines far surpass
                     creepers in my pleasure garden.
     A. The contrast of forest and palace echoes the structure of the play, which begins in the forest,
          then moves to the palace before closing in the "celestial forest" -- the verse foreshadows the
          eventual supremacy of the natural world.
     B. Note the complex and erotic imagery of women as vines, embracing (and entangling?)

VI. While hiding Dusyanta sees Sakuntala. She is blossoming into womanhood, as the poet expounds
      in a series of lines that evoke plant imagery by expanding on both the mimosa and the vine
      metaphors. The passage ends with a bee being attracted to Sakuntala

VII. Dusyanta is immediately attracted to Sakuntala, which puzzles him because her father is of a lower
      social class. He takes for granted that he could not be interested in an inferior woman. He reveals
      his presence but conceals his identity. The women take him to be a "royal sage," a member of the
      kshatriya class who exceeds his social birth position through a combination of aceticism and virtue
      Sakuntala is also attracted to him -- and not just platonically.

VIII. Dusyanta learns that Sakuntala is the daughter of a royal sage (and as his social equal acceptable
        as a wife) and an apsaras sent to tempt the sage during his meditations. Dusyanta and Sakuntala
        exchange a few words, and her friends speak of marriage, before the scene is disrupted by the
        imminent arrival of the king's men.

ACT TWO

While set in the forest near the ascetics' hermitage, act two deals with social issues. The buffoon is exhausted from the king's hunting. Fortunately for him, Dusyanta has lost his urge to hunt, focusing only on how to see Sakuntala again. He rejects his general's call to the hunt and reassures the buffoon that he would never have fallen in love with a social inferior. The buffoon still doubts that a country girl can have the appeal of a palace-bred woman. Dusyanta debates as to whether she really feels toward him as he does toward her, and decides that she does. He considers how to visit the hermitage again, and as luck would have it some boys from the hermitage arrive and request his help in repelling some demons that are trying to take advantage of the sage's absence. Dusyanta's situation is complicated when a messenger arrives and calls him back to fulfill his filial obligations to his mother. Dusyanta solves two problems by sending the buffoon home in his place, along with his entire retinue.

ACT THREE

Act Three parallels Act One. Dusyanta hides and observes the (literally) love-sick Sakuntala. When he is convinced that his love for her is returned, he reveals himself. Sakuntala's friends tactfully leave. Dusyanta seeks physical consummation of their love, and speaks of gandharva marriage as a moral justification. Sakuntala resists, and with the return of her friends and the old woman, their love remains unconsummated. Dusyanta is called to his duty as protector against demons.

ACT FOUR

Act Four is the fulcrum upon which the play balances. It looks back to all that has happened and sets the stage for everything to come. There is a considerable lacuna in the action between acts three and four. The love of Dusyanta and Sakuntala has been consummated, Sakuntala is pregnant, and Dusyanta has departed for the city. To a great extent, the act is a study in the bhava (emotion) of shoka, separation from a loved one. Lost in shoka, Sakuntala fails to extend a greeting to a guest. The guest turns out to be Durvasas, a well-known literary character known for his curses. He places a curse of forgetfulness on Dusyanta. Sakuntala's friends try to undo the damage, but Durvasas will relent only so far as to say thay Dusyanta will remember her again when he sees the ring he has given her. The girls do not tell Sakuntala of the calamity. Sakuntala is prepared for her departure to her new husband, and the local spirits provide clothing and jewelry. After much lamentation, Sakuntala departs and her father Kanva finds peace.

ACT FIVE

The next two acts are set in the palace, currently a place of unnatural disorder, in contrast to the natural world of the hermitage. One of Dusyanta's wives sings a lament over losing the king's favor to another woman. The words return to the metaphors of the mango and the bee, thus the lament operates on two levels, and Dusyanta reacts emotionally. He ascribes the feeling to vague memories of a lover from some previous life. The pregnant Sakuntala is presented to the king, who is attracted by her beauty, but concludes that she is another man's wife::
                     I cannot love her or leave her, like a bee
                     near a jasmine filled with frost at dawn.
Sakuntala determines to show him the signet ring, but discovers it is lost. Gautami rightly concludes that it fell off, but Dusyanta believes she is entrapping him. Sakuntala tries to move him with descriptions of their time together in the hermitage, but he cannot remember. Gautami departs, saying Sakuntala's place is now with the king. Dusyanta still fears to be near another man's wife, but a priest suggests waiting until the child is born. It is fortold that Dusyanta's son will bear a mark of kingship. Dusyanta agrees and Sakuntala is led away. She calls on Mother Earth to take her, and a woman of light carries her away (her apsaras mother, Menaka).

ACT SIX

The Ring of Polykrates -- a fisherman is brought before the magistrate (the king's brother-in-law) for stealing the king's ring. The king rewards him. The sight of the ring brings back Dusyanta's memory, but this central event occurs off-stage. After this initial scene, the apsaras Sanumati descends to observe Dusyanta. He has cancelled the Spring festival in his grief. Dusyanta contemplates a picture of Sakuntala, and madly drives off a bee that is drawn to the painting. (In Act One, Sakuntala is madly attacked by a bee and "saved" by Dusyanta). He faints in grief. Sanumati wants to tell him that Sakuntala is safe, but refrains because she knows the gods have become involved. Indra's charioteer arrives and threatens the buffoon to arouse Dusyanta from his despondency. The charioteer explains that Dusyanta is needed to defeat a horde of demonsl

ACT SEVEN

Having defeated the demon horde, Dusyanta begins his return to earth. On the way he and the charioteer stop at the celestial hermitage of Marica, father of the gods. Dusyanta meets his son and, through a series of events, recognizes him. One element of recognition involves a play on words. Shakunta in Sanskrit means "bird" (sometimes specifically a type of crane in Prakrits). When the child is given a toy bird he asks for his mother. Kalidasa saves this clever surprise for the end of the play, but in the Mahabharata we learn that when the offspring of the royal sage and the apsaras is left near the hermitage of Kanva, the baby is watched over by a flock of birds, hence her name. In short order, Sakuntala and Dusyanta are reunited and all is set in order. The play closes with their imminent departure for home.

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