BUDDY READS/ READ-ALONG - Kalidasa's Abhigyan Shakuntalam

Hello,

Welcome to the buddy read/read-along thread for Kalidasa's Abhigyan Shakuntalam. This is an open thread, you can join it as long as you can stick to the reading schedule for this month.

Rules:

1. I am open to reading any version and from any publication as long as it is an unabridged version. Click this link to access the books in case you want to read from the same edition/publication. You can also upload your copy if you want to read that one (so that I can also read from the same).

2. Schedule: for the sake of simplicity and ease, we follow an-act-a-day schedule to accommodate group discussions and any other texts that you are reading at the same time.

So, the schedule is:

1. Saturday 3/5/25 - Act I
2. Sunday 4/5/25 - Act II
3. Monday 5/5/25 - Act III
4. Tuesday 6/5/25 - Act IV
5. Wednesday 7/5/25 - Act V
6. Thursday 8/5/25 - Act VI
7. Friday 9/5/25 - Act VII

Feel free to add suggestions if you think I have missed something.

About the play:

Abhigyan Shakuntalam (Recognition of Shakuntala) is a play by Kalidas, recounting the story of Shakuntala and Dushyant. Divided in seven acts titled "The Chase", "The Concealment of the Feeling", "Lover's Fruition", "Shakuntala's Departure" "Repudiation of Shakuntala", "Separation from Shakuntala", and "Shakuntala's prosperity", the play covers the time from Shakuntala-Dushyant's first meeting to forgetting to recognition of Shakuntala by Dushyant.

Hey thanks for creating the thread

I need to check out these acts. It’s been some time and I’m unaware of the length of each one. I hope I can finish them in a day. And yeah we both can share our thoughts here— let’s see how it goes

Thoughts after reading Act I:

It has been almost a decade since I read it in the classroom. I did notice how much back then I was reading from the gendered perspective - like I noticed the agency and power dynamics between the characters.

So, this time, I am more focused on other aspects: like how there are subtle ways in which the story gets mirrored. Especially in the prologue and the Act names. Prologue introduces all the key elements of the play - from beauty, seduction, loss of memory to reminder - it is a small skit in itself. My favourite is the accuracy of the small skit/banter performed by the sutradhar and the actress: he suggests her to sing a "love song" to mirror the summer season, the season of love, she manages to make him forget, and he has to be reminded by her of what he had forgotten.

And thinking about it, I was wondering if this would be called a direct or indirect portrayal of the story since it is neither blatant nor vague.

Act I THE CHASE

It is interesting how the dynamics between the characters are established right from the first lines to add layers of metaphors to make the play happen at multiple levels:

Dushyant is on hunt, in the forest, which is a necessary trope for discovering Śakuntalā; but also establishes him as a the hunter, the predator, the one with the agency to make changes in everyone's life. In contrast, Śakuntalā is the chased deer, helpless and beautiful, untouched from the worldly order, the silent subject that will be forced to follow the flow of things around her. And this dynamic becomes apparent when Dushyant visits her. He seeks women when he hears them going on with their domestic lives, he secretly watches them and derives pleasure from their conversation. As a voyeur he enjoys Śakuntalā being teased by the women, almost watches her untie and tie her blouse, feels only he can appreciate her beauty better than anyone else.

What sounds funny to me is the mock heroic episode where he rescues Śakuntalā from the bee to impress her, which he manages. And while it is Śakuntalā who performs the acts of seduction, like creating false excuses to tempt Dushyant, he (Dushyant) is already laying a trap and is seducing her (Śakuntalā). This again, echoes the dynamics of Vishwamitra and Menaka, Śakuntalā's parents: Vishwamitra and Dushyant see and appreciate the beauty trap that is being played in front of their eyes.

Hey Lizzy, I have one doubt. What is the difference between this version and the translated English version of the same book ?

Which version/edition you are using?

Originally posted by: LizzynDarcy

Which version/edition you are using?

I found one edition that was a bit simple to follow.

Do you have any suggestions ? If so I can read that.
https://www.yorku.ca/inpar/shakuntala_ryder.pdf

It is the same one, minus footnotes and endnotes. You can follow it.

Originally posted by: LizzynDarcy

It is the same one, minus footnotes and endnotes. You can follow it.

Great Lizzy thank youuu. I’ll update my thoughts on Act 1 at the earliest

Sorry for the long, unavoidable break and the series of quick posts, which you will suffer.

Act II THE CONCEALMENT OF THE FEELING

While this section begins as an extension of the earlier act, recounting it from a third person's perspective reveals the eccentric attitude of the king and his obsession with Śakuntalā - both actions are unhealthy, no matter how much they might be guised under love. Coming to the extension, "chase" becomes a recurring motif that connects the two acts and the narrative. In this specific act, the actual hunting of the animals is abandoned in favour of seeking sexual pleasure, while using the same analogy: it feels everyone is aware of the connection and deliberately uses it.

Consider this justification given the general, who is unaware of the romantic matter tries to justify the concept of chase by using the same words, which others use to describe the sexual tension between Dushyant and Śakuntalā:

The body light, manly, ready for action,/trim in the waist, fat melted away; knowledge gained/of changing responses of woodland creatures seized by fear or anger;/the archer's elation as arrows hit perfectly the moving mark:/falsely indeed is the chase cursed as a vice; is there another sport so excellent as this?"

In this context, Madhavya calling the general "inciter of strong passions" makes sense. He is blaming him for invoking king's hunger for all types of hunts.

But, this is not what strikes my mind. It is the later sections of this act that remind me of the similarity this play has with the C-drama plots where the womaniser king, accompanied by his trusted eunuch, lusts for beauties everywhere he goes! Here, the only difference is that the king is accompanied by none because he is called to the palace by his mother and he sends his trusted minister to play the substitute king in his absence, while he chases the beauty. Dushyant is a lusty king and becomes obvious with Madhavya's words: "I see it all now; I see it quite clearly. I trust you have laid in a good stock of provisions. For it looks as if you have turned the penance-grove into a pleasure garden." And again, he is called by the same name as Vishvamitra "Royal sage" and the one who has "all passions under perfect control", which seals Śakuntalā's fate as I said in the earlier post.

What is even more interesting Dushyant's constant need to hide his identity from Śakuntalā (in the previous act) and to hide his new affair and obsession from the ladies at the palace (including both his mother and his wives). This feels unusual but all of this echoes the key elements of the play once again: the safeguarding of the son's succession, the token fulfilment via substitution.

What do you think? Am I reading too much into this?

Act III LOVE'S FRUITION

If the job of prelude in this section was to match the levels of sexual interest between the characters, it did well. Śakuntalā is equally crazy about Dushyant as he is about her. Yet, we only suffer from witnessing the perpetual state of horniness, in which the king lives. He blames Kamdev, but he is actively obsessing over Śakuntalā: provides insights into the irresponsible and shifty character of Dushyant, which we have seen in the previous episodes and will keep on recurring later as well.

And as much Kalidasa is capable of presenting ways of expressing sexuality of Śakuntalā for Dushyant's character, it is not central to my musings - not anymore even though, the text attacks you after every few lines!

I am intrigued by Dushyant's character. His character is deeply disturbing to me because he is obsessive, controlling and possessive.

His obsession with Śakuntalā is obvious, as much is his need to repeat Menaka's fate to Śakuntalā. He could have properly waited and wedded her in a respectable manner but he did not - out of eight marriages that exist in the Hindu tradition, he offers her Gandharva vivah, which is almost private and modern day equivalent of live-in - as if he wanted to hide her and deny his responsibilities towards her.

He is also obsessed with controlling his identity by hiding it, which almost everyone knows and seems to indulge him. He called himself a minister in his first introduction, then he is called the royal sage (which reveals his royal status), then he is called his majesty by Śakuntalā's friends and yet he insists on disguising himself! I don't know how to process his obsession with identity.

Dushyant is quite possessive. He already considers Śakuntalā as his, even before she agrees to be his. He takes too many liberties to approach her and grab her, showing his poor control over his desires just like Vishvamitra had slipped with Menaka. I don't know, but his possession, his control feels performative - like he is being psychotic to recreate the past as much as he can. (His ego also surfaces when Śakuntalā tries to leave and he openly grabs her and claims "What! Shall I not please myself?") His sense of entitlement to Śakuntalā and to obtain pleasure from Śakuntalā is really disturbing.

I don't know what to think of Śakuntalā's fears as she insists on extracting a promise from Dushyant - to not forget her, the latter casually agrees to it. Śakuntalā has accepted him as her husband, she called him "my lord" and allows him liberty to touch her.