A History of Indian Literature v1.c9.s4.2

v1.c9.s4.2

Unfortunately, however, this very *Śakuntalā episode* of the Mahābhārata¹ has been handed down to us in a much deteriorated and probably also mutilated, form which seems to have retained only a few features of the old heroic poem and could hardly have formed the prototype of Kālidāsa's poem. The descriptions of the forest, the chase and the hermitages, are spun out not to "epic" but to pedantic length partly after the pattern of the later ornate poetry. The story itself is unattractive and has no artistic basis. The fact that Śakuntalā is not acknowledged by the king is not accounted for, as in Kālidāsa's play, by a curse and the story of the lost ring, but by the king's desire to remove every doubt, on the part of his courtiers, as to the genuineness of the royal birth of his son. Therefore he provokes as it were, a divine judgment. He pretends not to know Śakuntalā, and refuses to acknowledge his son, until a heavenly voice announces, before the whole court, that Śakuntalā has spoken the truth and that her child is really the son of King Duṣyanta. Here we meet the two verses which we know for certain belong to the oldest part of the Śakuntalā poem and are taken from the old bard poetry.¹