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Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Poet's creativity

I was reading the story of Shakuntala in Mahabharata. It is a simple story.
A king comes and see a girl in the forest. He is driven by passion and makes love to her, promising to send for her. The king goes back and forgets her.
Shakuntala gives birth to a boy and takes him to his father. The king refuses to acknowledge them and a voice from the heavens says this is your son, and the king accepts them.

When Kalidasa read this, he made this into a very romantic tale.
The king sees some girls being chased by bees. The king rescues them and is attracted to one of them, who is Shakuntala.
They marry and the king gives her a ring, saying whenever she produces the ring, he will recognize her.
The king goes away and after a few months Shakuntala realizes she is pregnant. She goes to the king, and in the way looses the ring.
Without the ring the king does not know who she is.
The ring had been lost in a pond and a fish had swallowed that.
One day a fisherman catches that fish, cuts it open and finds the king's ring. He shows it to the king, who remembers Shakuntala.

He goes out in search of her, and meets a brave boy who is counting the teeth of lions. He meets the boy's mother and recognizes her to be his Shakuntala. He is united with his wife and son.

A beautiful piece of poetry by a great poet, Abhijñānaśākuntalam

1 comment:

  1. :)
    King came back and meet Shakuntala was not known to me or I had forgotten ,

    ReplyDelete