EDITORIAL NOTE: here we have a further, even more fragmentary, commentary on Shakuntala, from notes taken from a different source. There are, therefore, repetitions and duplications of the text in "erotic mysticism Kalidasa", but also additional elements and structural diagrams. We have preserved the two sources separately so as not to lose any details.
We apologise for the dubious level of the translation of Shakuntala available on this site.
This text starts on page 81 of file sp5 from Saundarya Lahari Notes, on this website.
SHAKUNTALA
by KALIDASA
THE NANDI (Introductory Invocation)
"That creation which is of created things the first,
Which bears what is offered according to (obligatory) rules,
That which is the ghee,
That which is at the same time the sacrificer,
Those two which ordain time,
That ground which inhere in sound, substance and quality,
Filling the whole universe,
That which is said to be seed of all manifestation.
That by which gives life to all beings,
Let these eight manifestations of the Lord
Attainable by what is given to the senses,
Bless you.
SHAKUNTALA NANDI
WORD-FOR-WORD TRANSLATION.
"Ya srishti srashturadya" - That creation which was of created things the first.
"Vahati" - bears.
"Vidhibutam" - what is offered according to rules.
"Ya havir" - that which is ghee.
"Ya ca hotri" - that which is the sacrificer.
"Ye dve kalam vidhattam" - those two which ordain time.
"Shrutimshayaguna" - the three categories of sound, hearing, substance, quality inhere (not clear, ed.)
"Ya sthita vyaya vishvam"
"Yam ahuh sarva bya prakrtiti" - that which is the potential source of all manifestation in Nature.
"Yaya praninaha pranavantah" - that by which all living creatures attain to breathing status.
"Pratyakshabhih prapamah" - attained by what is given to the senses.
"Tanubhih" - bodies.
"Ashtabhihi vastabhihi ishah avatu" - of the eight bodies all of you, Lord, let it save.
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Eka Purusha - there is a golden-haired and bearded man inside the sun and also inside the pupil of your eye.
HYPOSTATIC:
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There is another version of this structure:
HYLOZOIC:
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EDITOR'S NOTE
On page 81 of this document there are two structures
It appears clear to the Editor, who was also the person who originally made these notes, that the word "hylozoic", which appears in between the two structures on the page, refers to the lower structure, and that there is a missing word "hypostatic", which should refer to the upper structure.
Structural diagram 81A is a hypostatic version, with a positive reference.
81B is a hylozoic version , which would have a more earthy, negative reference.
The error of the pundits is that Kalidasa is not speaking in Puranic but Upanishadic terms.
The first verse of the invocation (the nandi) is:
"That which is spoken of as "eka purusha".
There are two purushas (persons) - Vedanta believes in a hypostatic and a hierophantic purusha,
which two cancel out in the "eka purusha". (eka = one)
The duality of Samkhya on the subject of purusha, as well as all other duality, is revised by the Gita.
Sāmkhya philosophy regards the universe as consisting of two realities; puruṣha (consciousness) and prakriti (phenomenal realm of matter).
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"Shiva" is the oldest name of the Absolute on Indian soil.
"SHABDA PRAMANA" - ("WORD-VALIDITY") MEANS A CANONICAL TEXT;
IN VEDANTA THE CANONICAL TEXTS ARE:
THE BHAGAVAD GITA, THE UPANISHADS AND THE BRAHMA SUTRAS.
Fire.
The butter is also the person sacrificing.
The sacrificer is not distinguished from the sacrifice.
Time can be divided horizontally or vertically.
Generalise the notion of nature and you get prakriti.
That which is said to be the universal nature principle is breath:
that is the principle which gives life to all living beings.
TRANSLATION OF THE NANDI FROM SAKUNTALA
"That creation which is the first of all created things,
Which bears what is offered according to (obligatory) rules;
that which is the clarified butter, that which is at the same time the sacrificer (hotri).
Those two which make time; that ground in which inhere quality, sound, substance - filling the whole universe.
That which is said to be the seed of all manifestations.
That which gives life to all beings.
Let these eight manifestations of the Lord, attainable through what is given to the senses - bless you."
SHAKUNTALA
Sutradara - the stage manager.
Entry of Dushyanta.
The "Pinaka-wielder" is Shiva.
This is the archetypal figure of Shiva pursuing a deer.
"The deer is scarcely perceived" – there is a vanishing point.
It makes a horizontal line, more through the air than on land.
The arrow flies, this is the tragedy of the horizontal axis.
The path is strewn with half-eaten grass; the dotted line of tragedy.
There is a Fitzgerald contraction of the deer.
(The Fitzgerald contraction, also called space contraction is, in relativity physics, the shortening of an object along the direction of its motion relative to an observer. Dimensions in other directions are not contracted.)
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With the speed of the chariot objects are distorted, etc.
He wants to treat the horses and chariot as counterparts.
Near and distant things are being mingled, a monde affiné, a refined version of the universe, as in Bergson’s writings, is being created.
Far becomes near horizontally.
Divided becomes united vertically.
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This is a horizontal and vertical union.
Bent seems straight.
The charioteer gesticulates to illustrate the horizontal speed - then the Ashram appears - a vertical factor.
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The Ashram is a vertical island of neutrality.
Fire on flowers = agnihotra (fire sacrifice)
Deer = Shakuntala = flowers
Burning is the beginning of verticalisation.
The first description of the Ashram (in Jaina terms):
1) Grains pecked by the parrots are left undisturbed by the Rishis, forgetting food.
2) Nut-crushers for lamp oil - the Ashram is Self-sufficient.
3) The deer are not afraid of the chariot inside the Ashram.
4) Marks of die from the bark cloth indicate the simplicity of Ashram life.
The King's throbbing arm is an omen of disaster.
There is a dialectical relationship between pot and damsel - their shape.
The name Anasuya means "without jealousy".
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The roots of the trees bathe in the canal.
The fire is lit with ghee, clarified butter.
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Shakuntala's garment covers and spoils her beauty, but is also an ornament - paradox.
Shakuntala seems to be a creeper on a tree - this is a suggestion of Shakuntala's involvement with Dushyanta.
The bee goes to her lower lip - square root of minus-one.
Only a woman's lower lip is referred to; a man's never.
A bee is a universal principle of honey-seeking.
"Between eyes and ears" - the seat of gossip is between the eyes and ears.
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SHAKUNTALA
NANDI (introductory invocation)
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The Brahmacharis come to collect firewood (for Vedic sacrifice) = pedestal.
Ahimsa (non-hurting) (a Jaina quality) inside the Ashram = pedestal.
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Abhijnana (as in title of play) means "recognition".
Eyes of Shakuntala >< eyes of deer >< chastity.
Dushyanta asks if Shakuntala must continue a life of chastity, like a female deer.
Both the tendencies are merged.
What the King wants; what Priyamvada says; what Kanva wants - together they are a solution and salvation.
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Dushyanta is non-innocent horizontality;
Shakuntala is innocent verticality.
They combine for this error or non-error.
Vedanta does not explain anything away.
He gives the ring to pay the debt to the waterman.
There are two trees with two pots and her two reddened hands.
By describing her physical fatigue, he describes her erotic feeling.
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She is indebted horizontally
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Plant = child
Water = breast milk
Creeper and tree = Shakuntala and her husband.
The hair represents numerator glossiness, sunshine.
She holds it up to show that she is not wholly overwhelmed by love.
She turns her eyes like a deer turning its head.
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She is a banner blown against the wind.
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The king gives the situation an everyday interpretation by attributing Shakuntala's state to ordinary fatigue.
The elephant means horizontal values are prevailing.
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The buffoon complains of the hard work and the chase.
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"A man in love interprets everything with reference to himself."
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First there is nothingness on the plus side (the buffoon).
The buffoon leans on a pillar (a right angle).
Everything he talks of is on one side of the quaternion.
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The eyes and ears are the link.
Heavy hips imply rich emotional content.
"A man in love interprets everything in relation to himself"
This is a universal law.
The King is converted from a horizontal state to a vertical.
The deer have Shakuntala's eyes.
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The buffoon is tired.
The king is still full of activity - but not fatigued of love affairs - he is tired of killing deer.
There is reciprocity between the fawn and Shakuntala.
The deer's glance in the first scene turns from fear to love.
There are four kinds of animals referred to:
buffaloes, deer, boars and .......(birds? horses? ED.)
The loosening bowstring brings bow and string together in the vertical axis.
Surya Kanta is a stone which creates rays when the sun falls on it, like a hermit's potential power.
"Son of a slave girl".
The creeper reoccurs continuously, it stands for Shakuntala.
The King speaks directly of his love, shows honour as Puru's descendant.
One flower drops on another, one is more hypostatic than the other.
Sweet dates and sour tamarind - like refined Bombay Parsi ladies and crude Marathi coolie girls.
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An outline of beauty filled with content from the existential side.
The creation of existence from the ontological side.
Describe Shakuntala's beauty.
An unsmelt flower - on, from, by, through, for itself – this defines the Absolute
The hermits' heads shine with cheap ingudi oil (insult), they have no other oil than this humble one, from nuts gathered in the forest.
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This page is filled with the Sanskrit version and transcription.
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The King is compared to a Muni - he is the ruler of the kingdom as the Muni is the ruler of the senses.
There are three references to her dress.
An imaginary thorn.
Her two friends are almost vertical: Shakuntala is verticalized, she is like a creeper on a tree,
Anasuya is almost verticalized; Priyamvada slightly so.
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"A person in love sees himself" - this is cancellation - it equates the Self with the non-Self.
The buffoon views the world horizontally, the King has the honour of the Puru race.
The hermit boys say: "we have attained the object of our desires - we are satisfied"
They are going to see the King who is a complementary value to them.
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Abundance between two systems.
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"He has conquered his passions" - but he is in love with Shakuntala.
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Putra-pinda-palana
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Both are treated as duties, to the Queen or to the hermitage.
The Queen treats the servant as a son.
Shakuntala is also a mother principle
- there is parity between them.
Reciprocity - there are real demons on the existential side.
Substitutes a messenger for the son - fear of Rakshasas (demons).
Both are the same.
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Previously the King and the jester were alone under the tree,
Now they enter three worlds, one the rival of the other
(the Queen and Shakuntala).
The boy sends water to Shakuntala.
The King has power to drive away ghosts.
Trishanku - a Manu (sage) sent up to heaven by his guru and rejected by Indra.
Sunyavada - Madhyamika - the philosophy of Nagarjuna - it does not cancel out, it blows neither hot nor cold
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SHAKUNTALA
ACT 3
The lotus stalk represents the central nervous system of Shakuntala.
She is injured in her simplicity by her encounter with the King.
(Ayurveda Shastra, Verse 1: "Disease is caused by affection".)
There are two cures: chant some mantras and pour holy water or treat with oil and baths.
Water pouring down a hill.
The laws of nature are operating in the world of necessity.
"Burnt by Shiva's fire" - there is fire also at the Alpha Point.
The light of double negation makes a light that dulls the sun.
Double assertion likewise.
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The King is burnt
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The banner of the God of Love depicts a fish; her eyes are shaped like a fish.
She is on the negative side, but her eyes reveal her position on the positive side.
"This god with fish-banner (Eros) who pains my mind, will delight me if he strikes me for the large-eyed one."
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Suffering in the vertical axis is doubly negated.
Kama Deva (Eros) is burned and sinks to the Alpha Point.
By subterranean heat he can burn if there is no double negation or double assertion.
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The King has asked if Shakuntala's vow of celibacy is until marriage, or for good.
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The lotus leaf is horizontal.
The stalk is vertical.
Neither celibacy nor non-celibacy are recommended here.
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Shiva burns Kama Deva, the God of Love.
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Sacrifice - ritual.
Permitted at the end of a rite.
Vedanta is the end (-anta) or final point of the Vedas.
Going beyond Karma (or beyond necessity) to contingence.
The banks of the Malini have little wavelets.
This is the world of sunlight; thus She is on the plus side.
Karma Kanda (that which pertains to action) is over,
Jnana Kanda (that which pertains to wisdom) begins.
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Kama Deva gesticulates that he feels the touch - at the ontological limit; it is the most basic sense.
This is in order to banish the heat of the love affair - the wind can cool.
The name of the river, Malini, means "skin".
(The bower of creepers - see "Shakuntala".)
There is a circle of reeds - then of creepers - then footprints.
The heavy behind of Shakuntala implies a walk like a duck or swan. (See Saundarya Lahari, Verse 91)
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The child, when born, will balance the weight of the behind.
This is structural, not aesthetic perfection.
The circle of reeds represents the boundary around the world of a girl in love.
He looks at her and feasts his eyes.
It is a "full feast" - in the Absolute there are no parts.
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A stone slab strewn with flowers;
- this represents the ontological basis
- flowers are the limit of ontology.
She is swooning from a negative state of consciousness.
She has faded very much - the absolute quality of Shakuntala.
The ointment on her breasts - the breasts are the horizontalization of a woman's body.
Lotus-stalk fatigued in summer – this shows the extent of her fatigue by analogy.
Breast = feeling.
Hands = energy.
Both are fatigued.
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She is in a state of Absolute negativity, like lotus stalks.
Upper half.
There is a paradox - she is charming and deplorable at the same time.
She states her love straightforwardly.
Double negation - the heat of the afternoon causes clouds which rain and negate the heat - thus her love.
No immorality is involved in their love - Kalidasa wishes to establish this.
This is Gandharva marriage - contemplative human conventions do not apply.
This historic marriage tradition from the Indian subcontinent was based on mutual attraction between a man and a woman, with no rituals, witnesses or family participation
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A very strong mango tree supports the creeper.
A girl must have horizontal strength to raise a family.
"Type" in literature disappears in Europe after the 17th century.
Anasuya and Priyamvada represent types
- they fulfil both requirements at the same time
- they are neither too abstracted nor too concretised.
Everybody knows of the love affair - there is no need for action - the thing will take care of itself.
The tears of the King flow on his bejewelled and bow-scarred wrist.
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The diamonds are wetted by the tears.
The bracelet never touches the bow-scar
That means that his arm has grown thin.
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ALL RELIGIONS PUT SOME CONCEPT ON A PEDESTAL
BUT VEDANTA ALONE CANCELS EVERYTHING OUT.
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Shakuntala is advised to send a love letter.
She begins the letter with reference to herself
- begin at the ontological side.
Here we have the trick of hiding the letter amongst the flowers and conventional tricks of poetic composition.
Moonlight.
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The bracelet does not touch the scar - it would if he were a mere hunter.
The King is a horizontal and a vertical hunter
He is a hunter, but he is a hunter of Shakuntala's eyes.
Shakuntala is too far gone in love with the king.
He is worthy of her.
The two lovers are compared to:
A drop of water and the ocean.
A mango and a creeper.
Two stars and the moon.
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There is a sudden change in Shakuntala from depression to smiles at the idea of writing a letter.
The horripilation or thrilling of the cheeks - the cheeks are the most superficial part - but they are positive.
She raises only one eyebrow - making a sinus curve or figure-eight.
This is horizontal, but very slightly tilted towards the vertical.
On the numerator side there must be a sex act.
She is writing poetry and raising her eyes in the concentration of composition.
She engraves the poem on a lotus leaf.
Nothing artificial must intervene between the conceptual and the vertical.
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The day does not make the lotus fade as much as the moon.
Flowers and crushed lotus stick to her body.
The lack of co-ordination of her limbs means that the creeper has fallen to the ground.
Shakuntala does not think herself worthy of the King.
She sits up in interest to compose a love poem
- the King stops her from trying to rise.
"O cloud wanderer, do not be separated from your wife."
See Kalidasa’s poem, Meghaduta. It recounts how a yakṣa, a subject of King Kubera (the god of wealth), after being exiled for a year to Central India for neglecting his duties, convinces a passing cloud to take a message to his wife at Alaka on Mount Kailāsa in the Himālaya mountains. The yakṣa accomplishes this by describing the many beautiful sights the cloud will see on its northward course to the city of Alakā, where his wife awaits his return.
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The King affirms that his other wives are of no importance to him.
"The sea-clad earth" is horizontal.
"This friend" is vertical.
The girdle of the seven seas delimits the absolute domain of any King
- the seven colours of the spectrum.
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The antelope seeking its mother - love seeking its object.
Priyamvada and Anasuya are in the same denominator context in going after the antelopes - delicacy of device.
One is called back for horizontal support.
There are two consolations.
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She offers to leave, thinking of Kanva - he restrains her - a certain use of force is justified.
Gandharva marriage is not in the human context.
Both the King and Shakuntala are of divine origin - he a descendant of Puru, she the daughter of an Apsara. Neither are mere mortals; therefore, Gandharva marriage is normal for them.
"The goodbye to the bower": hesitation at the beginning, then willingness, then regret at the end.
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Kalidasa wants to say that the wedding in heaven is over.
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The reeds in a circle are the arrowheads protecting the King.
The King lingers there - the reeds are verticalized.
The mud is fecund ground for the reed.
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The reed enclosure
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To the flesh eating-demons - the flesh is like a precious ruby - like a sunset or sunrise.
The voice from heaven is the introduction of the numinous element.
ACT 4
The girls offer flowers - why this idol worship?
Will the King remember?
He forgets Shakuntala as the result of a device.
Anyway, there is Maya - the principle of indeterminism.
On the whole, the King is an honest man.
Will Kanva approve of Shakuntala's action?
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Priyamvada is conventional.
Anasuya is unconventional.
Anasuya thinks Kanva will approve because she has an open morality and knows he is a spiritual man.
The offering of flowers - Kalidasa does not necessarily approve of this ritualistic, and thus relativistic, worship.
Shakuntala is in love and does not fulfil her duties of hospitality to her Muni (sage) guest.
The Muni threatens that he will respond to her neglect on the horizontal axis by giving her no blessing.
This is a bad omen.
The flower basket falls - also a bad omen.
The sage forgives but cannot take back the curse.
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The ring is mentioned - the ring was not mentioned.
Before it was in the vertical world, now indeterminism enters the scene.
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This scene introduces the horizontal axis - now the negative side will come.
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SHAKUNTALA 31
Durvasas wears sad clothes - he is a harsh horizontal saint.
He walks away with a heavy step.
Like a fully blown lotus he tramps quickly.
He is a Tapasvi (renouncer), maybe a Siddha (possessor of psychic powers or siddhis).
With expanded fingers.
He is in the middle and horizontal.
She is in the middle and vertical.
The last scene was demons around a fire at sunset.
Now it is the dawn time.
The sun and moon influence the bodily metabolism.
On the one side the lord of medicinal herbs, (as in the Middle Ages) the moon.
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In Act 4 complication becomes complete.
Everyone becomes negative but Shakuntala is sleepy and incapable of action.
No-one blames Shakuntala but her misfortune is caused only by love or by the curse of Durvasas.
Shakuntala is blameless.
Kanva also is not involved in the horizontal.
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There is a contrast between the boy and the girl in the morning.
The girl is tired.
("Women should not wake up early in the morning", Nataraja Guru.)
The Rishi weeps for his daughter - this is a most important verse.
The prophecy comes in four lines of Vedic metered verse - a quaternion.
Priyamvada speaks in Sanskrit, not in Prakrit.
(Prakrit means "natural"; viz. "Prakriti").
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Shakuntala bears seed as a sami tree bears fire.
This is the essence of Advaita: any log of wood contains fire (by friction).
The garland is kept fresh in a casket to keep her happy.
The mango tree represents the principle of fecundation.
The Kesara tree contains fire between the stamen and the pistil = the fire in the womb.
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Kanva's speech about the pain he feels - how much more pain would the father of a family feel.
Sacrifice - the speech of Kanva.
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"Vedi" is the area of sacrifice.
Perfumed smoke rises to purify.
The structure is the five-fold plan of the body.
108 is a complete structure.
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There are five senses and five satisfactions.
The speech by Kanva to the plants.
At the Omega Point is the voice of the quail.
Kanva is creating a magical world of nature.
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Three equations.
Shakuntala will not water the plants.
" " " " crop the leaves of the plants.
Her chief delight is the first blooms.
There is a parallel with Persephone.
The supernatural grows out of the natural.
The quail's song = the voice of the trees = possibilities.
Probabilities end, possibilities begin.
Shakuntala embraces the creeper.
The creeper concretely embraces the tree.
The creeper virtually embraces Shakuntala.
Kanva knew that a girl of Shakuntala's absolutist quality could only marry the king - as with a creeper and a mango-tree.
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There are five fires with grass and sesame strewn around and five boys.
In the middle is a tree - the vertical part of their function is to give vertical life to a flower, as with a baby in the womb.
A man comes from the other side, bathing.
The deer graze on the negative side of the structure.
Parrots pick at the grains, there is another circle - this is like a magic circle, as in the chakras.
There are five petals in the Muladhara Chakra, six in another.
Where is the origin of this?
It is an unauthorised product of the speculation of the Indian mind.
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There are deer grazing on the negative side.
Shakuntala is the malika creeper growing around the tree.
The King is the archetypal king of any city. “Pura”means “city” - he is of the Puru line.
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All together = chakras.
All become a lotus or a star or crescent.
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All together = all the Chakras become lotuses or stars or crescents.
Yoga is a lightning streak inside you.
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Shakuntala's refusal of the ring = tragic grandeur
She refuses the ring. Also she does not sleep in the palace.
This is Tyaga (renunciation).