The story of Sakuntala is originally a part of Vyasa’s Mahabharata, which Kalidasa later on made into a spectacular play with added characters and significant changes to the story. The son of Dusyanta and Sakuntala was named Bharata, who was a brave king, and in his lineage in the lunar dynasty, king Santanu of Hastinapur took birth, whose great-grandchildren, the Pandavas and Kauravas, engaged in a war in the Mahabharata.
Kalidasa’s Sakuntala portrays the difference between the complexity of city life and the simplicity of forest life quite well. Two of the protagonists live in two different environments. While Dushyanta is the king of Hastinapura and represents the city, Sakuntala, the daughter of Kanvaando, lives in a hermitage in a forest. The portrayal of the people and activities in a city and a forest creates a fine contrast in this play. When the ascetics from Kanva’s hermitage arrive at Dusyanta’s place to unite Sakuntala with her husband, Saradvata, one of the ascetics says:
“As if I were freshly bathed, seeing a filthy man,
pure while he’s defiled, awake while he’s asleep,
as if I were a free man watching a prisoner,
I watch this city mired in pleasure.”
Here, he means that the city seems impure. It seems as if the people of the city are sunk in ignorance, while the ascetics are enlightened. The city lacks openness; it is filled with unnatural elements, and the homes are all confined like prisons. Everyone has to obey the rules and follow the laws strictly. No one considers someone’s weaknesses while they hunt for their own benefit. However, life in the forest is different. There, a person can live a free life, everyone is considerate, and they do not chase after materialistic demands. To summarize, the people living in the cities have an empty-headed and pretentious life, while the people from the forest are knowledgeable and emancipated.
As the play begins, in Act I, King Dusyanta enters the forest in a chariot for the purpose of hunting. When he is about to shoot his arrow toward an antelope he has been chasing, two ascetics stop him from doing so. They stop the king from killing an innocent life only for amusement. They believe that these weapons should be used against the wrongdoers, not the ones who never committed mistakes. The people living in the forests are closer to nature and make every effort to nurture and protect them, while the people from cities do not know how to truly value these living beings. It was also a divine intervention or a supernatural act because, by refraining from killing the deer that belonged to the hermitage, Dusyanta got the opportunity to meet Sakuntala and, furthermore, become the father of a world emperor.
The forest is also a place of peace. This is why the hermitages are built in the forests. The monks, saints, and all other ascetics live in the forests to practice meditation and acquire inner peace. Such characteristics also allow the celestial beings to live peacefully in the forests without any threat. Sakuntala herself is originally the daughter of a celestial nymph, Menaka. The people living in the forest are very naive, and they do not pursue any evil intentions. The simplicity of these people motivates nature to serve them, while they take good care of nature in return. They water the plants, protect the animals, and take every other measure necessary to protect the beings that cannot express their thoughts. As a forest holds the true colors of nature, it can attain its serenity and beauty as well.
On the other hand, the city is a place of corruption. In the beginning of Act VI, the proof of corruption and complexity is found. The magistrate, who is brother-in-law to King Dusyanta, has held a fisherman captive, because he found a beautiful ring. Initially, because the fisherman is poor and weak, the policemen and magistrate mistreat him. They accuse him of stealing and decide to take him to the king’s court for punishment. However, as soon as the king announced a good amount of money in exchange for the ring, there was a change in the behavior of the officials. They take off all the charges. The fisherman also gives some money to the magistrate to form an alliance. This shows how complex the minds of these people are. The systems that run in the cities are corrupted. Unlike the forest people, these people are materialistic. They do not have morality; rather, they are all hungry for money and power.
In Act VI, when two maids were embracing the beginning of spring, a chamberlain tormented them, saying, “Did you not hear that even the spring trees and the nesting birds obey the king’s order?” This signifies that nature is controlled by humans. Even the natural elements are confined by the rules of the king. whereas in the forest, nature controls human life.
In the last act, when Dusyanta arrives at the forest, he describes its beauty. He does so because the city he lives in is manmade and does not have fine features like a forest. The beauty of the forests is incomparable. He adds that since the forest is home to the ascetics, it is indeed pure and full of celestial beings. Finally, when Sakuntala makes her appearance, he praises her simplicity.
In Sakuntala, city life has been portrayed as filthy, corrupted, and ignorant, while the forest is peaceful, simple, and enlightened. Dushyanta, due to a curse, forgets and denies his own love, which is also a portrayal of the ignorance of city people. At the same time, Sakuntala remembering everything, persisting with her love, and bringing up Sarvadamana despite Dusyanata’s rejection, shows how gracious the people of the forest are. With all the elements covered, Sakuntala serves as a multidimensional piece of eastern literature.
Writer:
Risalat Rahman Hridoy
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE