Shakuntala appears in the Mahabharata as the mother of Bharata, who becomes the progenitor of the Kaurava clan. But the woman that we meet here is a far cry from the shy flower of the forest of Kalidasa’s imagination who appears several centuries later. In the Mahabharata, Shakuntala strikes a deal with king Dushyanta (called Duhshanta in the epic) when he says that he wants to sleep with her — that the son born to her will be king. Dushyanta returns to his kingdom promising her that it will be so. Shakuntala raises her son in the forest and when he is six years old, takes him to the city to claim his heritage. Dushyanta rejects the boy and his mother in open court among his retainers and nobles — he says that he does not know the woman, he certainly does not recall having slept with her and the child she has brought with her cannot possibly be six years old.
Shakuntala reminds him of her own proud lineage — her father is the sage Vishwamitra and her mother is the apsara Menaka. Dushyanta’s retort is priceless — he calls her father an old lecher and her mother a whore. Shakuntala declares that the king is a liar and a violator, rather than upholder of dharma. For those reasons, he has no right to be king. At that moment, a disembodied voice speaks from the sky in support of all that Shakuntala has said, including Dushyanta’s promise that her son would succeed him on the throne. Dushyanta sheepishly acknowledges the truth and in time, his son, Bharata becomes king. It is not clear if the Dushyanta and Shakuntala ever loved each other and the Mahabharata seems to care little for that. Their encounter in the forest is hardly romantic. Like the other women in the Mahabharata, Shakuntala has done what it takes to secure the throne for her son, using what is effectively a pre-nuptial agreement to enforce succession.
Kalidasa’s adaptation
Five hundred years later, Kalidasa’s whitewash of the king is, we are told, due to genre considerations. In a nataka, the nayaka must be a hero, worthy of our admiration and respect and the nayika must be a shy virgin girl. Kalidasa’s master-stroke of the curse of amnesia absolves the king of all responsibility for his nasty behaviour. We are even made to feel sympathy for him in the play when a pregnant Shakuntala disappears from his life. Years later, he is reunited with his family and the delayed happy ending comes to be.
For reasons of genre or otherwise, Kalidasa restores the idea that the king cannot be a cad, that the man’s actions are always justifiable and that the good woman is a victim of circumstance. Kalidasa’s story also reinforces (inadvertently, perhaps) the idea that the bad woman — the fierce and feisty Shakuntala in the Mahabharata who demands her rights — deserves abuse and public humiliation. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The writer works with myth, epic and the story traditions of the sub-continent
