Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c5.s2.49

c5.s2.49

The story of Śakuntalā is referred to by Vātsyāyana in another place also. In his chapter on the courtship of a maiden, he says that the wooer should point out to the girl courted the cases of other maidens like Śakuntalā who situated in the same circumstances as herself obtained husbands of their own free choice and were happy by such union.² This refers to the story of the love between Śakuntalā and Dushmanta as we know it from the great drama of Kālidāsa, but Vātsyāyana was certainly not indebted to him for it; it is given very fully in the Mahābhārata.³ Aśvaghosha in the Buddhacarita also narrates how Viśvāmitra, Śakuntalā’s father, was led astray by an Apsaras whom, however, he calls Ghṛtācī instead of Menakā; in his Saundarananda-kāvya also, the same author speaks of Kaṇva who brought up Bharata, the son of Śakuntalā, and he says further that the young son of Dushmanta displayed great skill in sporting with the beasts of the forest.¹ In his *Sūtrālaṅkāra* again, Aśvaghosha speaks of Bharata as one of the great kings of India.² He was evidently well acquainted with the story of Śakuntalā. The *Kaṭṭhahāri Jātaka* certainly reminds us of the story of Duṣmanta and Śakuntalā.³ The legend, however, was known in still more ancient times, *viz.*, the period of the composition of the Brāhmaṇa portion of the Vedas. While we observe that Śakuntalā’s mother, Menakā is known as an *apsaras* in both the White and Black Yajurvedas,⁴ Śakuntalā herself is spoken of in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁵ as having borne at Nādapit⁶ the great Bharata who is also called there the son of Duḥshanta, and even the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa quotes the legend as having been sung in