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Supreme Theme : Srngāra or Love
vana life that took possession of her heart. But the awareness did not help her to check herself; she was swept off her feet by her emotion of love. This was her first mistake. It led to another. She failed to perform her duty as a hostess which Kaņva had entrusted to her. She did not take "cognisance of Durvāsas. This was an insult to the sage, an error, which brought its own punishment in the form of curse and her repudiation by her husband. The lonely vow of loyalty and devotion to her husband which she observed for six painful years in the hermitage of Mārica consumed the dross in her life, purified her love, and she became fit to be reunited to her husband under divine blessing. Duşyanta was a pārthiva in every sense of the word : a king no doubt, but earthly. In his first meeting with Sakuntalā he had greeted her courteously, asking, Does your penance prosper ?' But his own inclination was to turn the tapovana (penance-grove) into an upavana (pleasure-garden).10 Duşyanta was addicted to pleasures of life; he was a seeker of fresh honey, in the words of Humsapadikā. It was necessary that he too suffered from the pangs of separation as Sakuntalā did. When Duşyanta realised the spiritual significance of son as a saviour of the fore-fathers from hell and as an assurance of family continuity, which is the other-worldly purpose of marriage, and when he got an opportunity to fight a battle of the gods against the demons and thereby execute a piece of work at once unselfish, philanthropic and serving a divine purpose, then only did Duşyanta rise to the higher level of noble life, sublimating his earthly passions into spiritual love, and becoming fit to be reunited to his pious wife. This reunion of the chastened lovers then took place on the Hemakūta mountain, where the parents of the gods live, a place above the earth and more beautiful and pious than the heaven itself. Thus was earth transformed into heaven, the mundane into spiritual; the physical love was sublimated into heavenly love.
This construction put on the treatment of love in the Sakuntala and Kumārasambhava is very pleasing to read. But it is high time for some one to state in categorical terms that it is totally is relevant to art and to the literary art of Kālidāsa in particular. Such literary criticism grafted on ancient works by later minds prejudiced by different philosophies is likely to create chaos in the field of art criticism. It is necessary, therefore, to expose the incorrectness of its approach which is based on a different outlook on life. This kind of criticism is born of a particular philosophical tradition. Already many critics and most of the coilege teachers are strongly influenced by it. Many a literary critic have used this approach to sing the glory of Bhārata in its emphasis on the ascetic mode of life and spirituality. Some have used it as a handy and convenient device; so that in any dramatic composition when the theme runs into union, separation and re-union these critics are ready with the labels, the first union being called 'physical and the second 'spiritual! And this is not naive criticism; these critics feel a glow of triumph in that they have bestowed on literature a noble and spiritual significance. A really close examination of this prestigious
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