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Supreme Theme : Srngära or Love
only that he is on formally correct bebaviour; or else he felt suddenly embarrassed in the presence of the girls, his interest in them clouding momentarily his sense of propriety. This is only psychological interpretation that fits the dramatic situation. Later when Duşyanta asks about the possibility of an ascetic vow (Vaikhānass-vrata) that Sakuntalā may be observing, her friends assure Dusyanta that Kanva intended Śakuntalā to get married to a suitable husband With Kālidāsa's own plain statement that Kaņva had never thoughi of rearing his foster--daughter into a tapasvini, the reference of Sakuntalā to 'an emotion contrary to hermitage life' (tapovana-virodhi-vikāra) needs a better and correct interpretation. If Sakuntalā were a little frightened by an overwhelming emotion, she had never experienced before, if she is nervous by a sense of wrong, it is a proof of her keen conscience and of her ability to search her own mind even in an unexpected situation of embarrassment; it is also an evidence of the aśrama discipline which Kanva had taught and which Sakuntalā bad absorbed. The truth is, as Kaļidāsa suggests, that Sakuntală was so innocent that she had not known love for a young man to this moment; and therefore when the emotion seized her all of a sudden, she did not know its meaning and thought that it was opposed to her āśrama way of life. The arrival of Dusyanta in Kanva's hermitage disturbed its usual peace in a peculiar way: the agitation of the elephant frightened by the sight of Duşyanta's chariot represents the outward form of this thrilling disturbance; the nervous agitation in the mind of Śakuntalā represents its inner, psychological form. Kālidāsa is almost unrivalled in piling colourful and suggestive touches in an atmosphere and creating oui of them an artistically significant form. But what right have we to interpret a poet's artistic suggestions in any way we like?
The sastra rule about vyuñjanā or art-suggestion is that it must come in the wake of the expressed sense ( văcyártha-akşipta ); that is to say, the context provi. ded by the poet and his perspective on the theme, the character of the person speak. ing the line or of the listener in the story, and such other factors determine the direction of the suggested sense; it is not a fanciful meaning imposed by anybody's will. Such a scientific limitation (Šāstra-maryādā) is absolutely necessary, if a poetically suggestive sense were not to be a mockery or nonsense. So, if Kālidasa had thought the love of Duşyanta and Sakuntalā to be really tapovana-virodhi his development of the love-story would lose all meaning. There would be no point in the assurance given by Sakuntala's companions that Tata Kaśyapa had decided to marry Śakuntala with a suitable husband. And Kanva himself had no nced to congratulate Sakuntalā on the choice of her love-partner and bless her from his heart. For, all such love is physical, and the craving of passion has to be restrained and controlled in higher, spiritual interests, Kālidāsa should have shown this daughter of a sage checking herself at the right moment, rejecting the earthly passion of Duşyanta, and becoming an ideal sanyasini, to the delight of these philosophers of spiritualism. But this does not happen in Kalidāsa's play. It means, therefore, that the reference to the 'emotion contrary to hermitage life' and the jocular observation that Duşyanta tur
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