History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.265

v7.c95.265

All strata of Hindu society were permeated by the theory of Karma and transmigration. Great Sanskrit poets often allude to it. In the Raghuvamśa XI. 22 describing the visit of Rāma to the hermitage of Vāmana pointed out by Viśvāmitra, Kālidāsa remarks 'Rāma became restless (or disturbed) in mind, though not remembering his actions in the former existence as Vāmana' (both Vāmana and Rāma being avatāras of Viṣṇu) Similarly, in Śākuntala (Act V) the poet remarks 'when on seeing charming sights and hearing pleasing words, a person, though surrounded by pleasures, becomes restless (or sorrowful), that is indeed due to this that his mind unconsciously has the impressions of loves and friendships of past lives presented to it'. In the seventh Act of the same play when Duṣyanta and Śakuntalā were re-united, she, referring to her previous rejection by the king, remarks²⁵⁴⁹ 'indeed at that time some (bad) actions of mine (in some former life) hampered my good deeds and became ripe for fruition'. In the Raghuvamśa the 14th canto contains at first a message of spirited protest by Sītā whom Rāma ordered Lakṣmaṇa to abandon near Vālmīki's hermitage on account of the scandal about her among common people, but afterwards qualifies the message by saying that the terrible misfortune that she was going to suffer was the fruition of her misdeeds in former existences and that she desired to be his wife in a future existence but without separation from him. Vide also the Meghadūta verse quoted above in note 2533 p 1563.