Appointment with Kalidasa

Author(s): G K Bhatt
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 48

Literary Works
with his life. It was placed away while he was bathing; and as a servant was taking it back to him on a palm-leaf covered with a silk cloth, a hovering vulture snatched it away mistaking it for a piece of meat. For a moment Purūravas was lost admiring the beautiful movements of the bird in the sky and the sparkling display of red light emitted by the gem in the vulture's beak; but he became aware of his loss and ordered his bow and arrows. Before he could shoot the bird, however; an unknown arrow killed the brid. The chamberlain brought an arrow and the beloved gem to the king. The king picked up the arrow to read the name inscribed on it, it announced that the arrow was of Ayus, son of Urvasi and Aila-Purūravas. On the heel of this unexpected news came a female ascetic from the hermitage of Cyavana with a six year old boy. Urvasi recognised her own son and explained everything. She was permitted to live with Purūravas till he saw the face of a son born to him from Urvasi. Urvasi loved Pur Oravas so much that she sacrificed her motherly love and kept the boy away in the hermitage of Cyavana. Now that the boy had acted against the aśrama discipline in shooting at the bird he was brought back to his mother. But with this Urvasi's stipulated period of stay was also over. The prospect of a perfect family reunion was thus spoiled, and the atmosphere became heavy with im. pending separation and sorrow. Luckily for the couple and the boy a favour materialised, Nārada bringing the news. A serious war between the gods and the asuras was about to break; Purüravas had always been an important and valuable ally of the gods; Indra, therefore, would not like Purūravas to retire from his kingly life and take to hermit's vows as he was planning to do at the departure of Urvaśī to her heavenly abode; in return for the king's assistance in the coming war Indra granted a special favour so that Urvasi was permitted to live on earth with Pur Uravas as long as he lived. The threatened separation changed into life's union.
It is vikrama, the valour of Pur Uravas that won Urvasi for him; it is vikrama again that enabled him to have her all his life. That is why the word figures signi. ficantly in the title of the play.
7. Abhijñānaśakuntala The Śakuntala-upākhyāna in the Mahabharata, which is the obvious source of Kālidāsa's drama rather than the Puranic versions, is rather crude, full of improba bilities and supernatural elements. To give a beautiful poetic form to this legend, change the characterization, invest the story with convincing and moving human emotions, bring nature in to responsive harmany with man, ipfuse the tale with a definite philosophical outlook on life, and, above all, to write in such a poetic and dramatic style as to convey an impression that heaven and earth are combined in this play, is the supreme achievement of Kalidāsa.
The story of the Sakuntala also runs through the stages of union, separation and te-union. But they are worked out here more elaborately in seven acts and with