The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c12.s3.9

c12.s3.9

The other characters are models of skilful presentation. Kālidāsa here shakes himself free from the error of presenting any other woman in competition with Çakuntalā; Duḥṣanta is much married, but though Haṃsavati deplores his faithlessness he does not meet her, and, when Vasumatī enters in Act VI, the effect is saved by the entry of the minister to ask the king to decide a point of law. The Vidūṣaka, who would have ruined the love idyll, is cleverly dismissed on other business in Act II, while he serves the more useful end of introducing comic relief; Mātali playfully terrifies him to rouse the king from his own sorrows. Kaṇva is a delightful figure, the ascetic, without child, who lavishes on his adopted daughter all the wealth of his deep affection, and who sends her to her husband with words of tender advice; he is brilliantly contrasted with the fierce pride and anger of Durvāsas who curses Çakuntalā for what is no more than a girlish fault, and the solemn majesty of Mārīca, who, though married, has abandoned all earthly thoughts and enjoys the happiness of release, while yet contemplating the affairs of the world and intervening to set them in order with purely disinterested zeal. The companions of the heroine are painted with delicate taste; both are devoted body and soul to their mistress, but Anasūyā is serious and sensible; Priyaṃvadā talkative and gay. There is a contrast between the two hermits who take Çakuntalā to the court; Çārṅgarava shows the pride and hauteur of his calling, and severely rebukes the king; Çāradvata is calm and restrained and admonishes him in lieu. Equally successful is the delineation of the police officers, whose unjust and overbearing conduct to the fisherman represents the spirit of Indian police from the first appearance in history. The supernatural, which is in excess in the *Vikramorvaçī*, is reduced to modest dimensions, and intervenes hardly at all in the play, until we come to the last Act, where the theory permits and even demands that the marvellous should be introduced, and the celestial hermitage is a fit place for the reunion of two lovers severed by so hard a fate. The episode of the ring whose loss prevents the immediate recognition of the heroine is effectively conceived and woven into the plot.