पृष्ठ:Sakuntala in Hindi.pdf/११

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यह पृष्ठ जाँच लिया गया है।
vii
PREFACE.

in Professor Monier Williams's translation of the Sanskrit original. It is enough to say that King Dushyanta, laring plighted his troth to one Sakuntala, subscquently, under the influence of a Brahman's curse, loses all recollection of the fact. When Sakuutalà comes before him, le ignores her; and she is unable to release him from the curse, having, in the interim, lost a ring into which talismaniu virtue liad been infused. The subsequent recovery of the ring recalls Dushyanta from his obliviousness; and, shocked at the injustice le had unwittingly done, he refuses consolation, until lie has regained his mistress, and acknowledged ler as a wife. The legend itself is among the oldest in India; for Sakuntalâ is spoken of in the Satapatha-brâhmana; and lier mother Menakâ is mentioned in the Vâjasaneya-sanlita of the Yajwa reda. In the Vahabharata the whole tale will be found in much the same form in which it is liere given by Kálidasa ; whence it appears that the poet las embodiel a genuine tradition, and has not presented us with a mere invention.

The chief historical value of the play consists in the social and moral state of things which it exemplifies. We have before is a life-like picture of the Hindûs, men and women, as they were in the time of Kalidasa; ani, although in some respects we may (lisrelislı it, the picture is, on the whole, by no means (lisagrccable. We find an innocent play of feeling, and a conscious striving after virtue, which impart, and must always impart, a deep luman interest to this drama. The whole is so eminently natural, so full of artless simplicity, and so deroid of all artificialness, that the characters come before the mental eye as living beings, and the reader irresistibly feels that "touch of nature" whiclı invests with kinship to us even these legendary creations of distant India.

Conformably to Lastern isleas, tlic machinery of the play is supernatural; but this can scarcely be considered as a lefeet, inasmuch as the play linges on it essentially. The caves-dropping of King Dusliranta does not seem to have been through ingentlemanly; it may have been intended to illustrate one of the littlenesses of great men. The King, however, is not the best drawn character in the play. The witty, credulous, selfish, and rain Macharya is far above him as an