Mythological stories and folktales that have been around since ancient times are constantly evolving. They are a part of our oral storytelling tradition, and every storyteller tells it differently, infusing it with the cultural milieu, social and religious practices and his/her own world-view. This means that the same stories necessarily change over times and geographies, even if infinitesimally every time. This, for eg., accounts for vast differences between the Ramayana of Valmiki, the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas and the Indonesian version which has been derived from the Kamba Ramayanam of South India taken there by people who migrated there in the 8th century AD from Srilanka.
A notable example of different tellings of a mythological story is that of Shakuntala. Any self-respecting book reader will swear by the story immortalised by Kalidasa in his Abhijnaanashakuntalam. Shakuntala’s existence is forgotten by Dushyant on account of a curse by Durvasa rishi as she had been daydreaming about her husband when she should have been hastening to attend to Durvasa who is a guest. When she pleads with the seer to take back his curse, he tells her that if she can produce a token given by her husband in front of him, he would remember her. Then follows the whole story of the loss of the ring (careless woman!) and the serendipitous producing of it by the fisherfolk in the court after Dushyant has denied recognising Shakuntala as his wife in public.
I, too, believed in this version of the Shakuntalam till quite recently. The genius of Kalidasa and the beauty of his rendering ensured that the world believed it to be the real version. Far from it. It was merely the more popular version, that even little children learn (unfortunately!), thanks mainly to ACKs.
 |
| pic courtesy flipkart |
In his book, he speaks about the various women characters in the epic, known and relatively unknown. The chapter on Shakuntala made me sit up and take notice of the fact that Kalidasa had redefined the term ‘poetic licence’ drastically. Searching more for the original version, I found it again in Ashok Banker’s The Forest of Stories and a few online versions of the truth like this one.
In the original, there is no Durvasa-Ring episode. When Dushyanta disowns Shakuntala publicly, she berates him, and teaches him a few essential things about the Truth and Dharma. In the process, she comes across as intelligent, dignified and resourceful even under the grief of her husband’s denial of their marriage. Dushyant comes across as weak-willed coward, who was more worried about his image if he admitted to an impulsive marriage in a faraway hermitage. Of course, as it is mythology, he ‘accepts’ her after a convenient akashvani proclaims Shakuntala to be telling the truth!
Kalidasa’s Abhijnaanashakuntalam is a beautifully written love story. However, he had adapted the original tale of Shakuntala, infusing it with the beliefs and social mores of the times: the 4th century AD. The status of women was at a low as a direct result of the Manusmriti written a few centuries earlier. And of course, the hero of a romantic tale could do no wrong. How is Dushyanta to be blamed for his behaviour if he was a victim to a curse? In this, Kalidasa's genius has done women a disservice, as following generations have till today believed in his version rather than the original. Unfortunately, this is something that will shadow many such originals, as Sanskrit no longer remains a living language, and there will be fewer people who can study our original works.
This is my entry for Tulika's "Celebrating Our Myths" blogfest.
