The story of Shakuntala, as recounted by Kali-dasa, the great Indian poet of the first century BC, is the story of a transformation.
Kalidasa is saved from this by the chastity of his style, his aim at burdened precision and energy of phras.
And yet this poetry does not swim in languor, does not dissolve itself in sensuous weakness; it is not heavy with its own dissoluteness, heavy of curl and heavy of eye-lid, cloyed by its own sweets, as the poetry of the senses usually is.
All therein obeys one law of earthly grace; morality is aestheticised, intellect suffused and governed with the sense of beauty.
The scenery of this work is a universal paradise of beautiful things.
His creative genius expressed itself in a style that still captures our imagination: "The delight of the eye, the delight of the ear, smell, palate, touch, the satisfaction of the imagination and taste are the texture of his poetical creation, and into this he has worked the most beautiful flowers of emotion and intellectual or aesthetic ideal.
Kalidasa, the great Sanskrit dramatist, was hailed by none other than Sri Aurobindo as "the great, the supreme poet of the senses".
All who love India, we would like to imagine, will be charmed by the idea that the origin of this country\'s name lies in this story of Shakuntala, that is so suffused with magical light.
From the union of the two is born Bharat, "the support of the worlds", the king who gave his name to India, that is to say Bh rat.
As there are two chariots, a terrestrial and a heavenly one, so there are two journeys: one through the forest that leads the King to a world of marvellous purity, and the other through the regions of the sky that brings him to a universe of light.
In this regard one should note the parallels of the two journeys of the King.
Love, born in the paradise of childhood and innocence, is regained, transmuted and magnificently widened, in another paradise that one could call divine.
Through painful trials two characters grow.
The story of Shakuntala, as recounted by Kali-dasa, the great Indian poet of the first century BC, is the story of a transformation
