Shakuntala Dushyant

Shakuntala Dushyant

He was a mighty king and she was exquisitely beautiful hermit girl… Here I present thrilling love story from the epic Mahabharat !
Perhaps no other faith glorifies the notion of love as Hinduism. The legend, which the great ancient poet Kalidas retold in his immortal play ‘Abhigyana shakuntalam’. In this enchanting tale of passion, King Dushyant of the Puru dynasty, while on a hunting trip meets the hermit-girl Shakuntala who is a daughter of Vishvamitra and Menaka (a sage and a nymph thats another beautiful story) They fall in love with each other at first sight and in the absence of her father, Shakuntala weds the king in a ceremony of ‘Ghandharva’-a form of marriage by mutual consent with mother Nature as the witness. When the time comes for Dushyant to return to his palace, he promises to send an envoy to escort her to his castle.As a fond remembrance he gives her a signet ring.
One day, sage Durvasa visits the hermitage, but Shakuntala, who is too absorbed in her love for Dushyant, forgets to serve him food. In a fit of anger, sage Durvasa curses her, saying that the person she is thinking about will forget her. A shocked Shakuntala begs for forgiveness and the sage, after recollecting his calm, assures her that the person will remember her again when she shows some proof of their acquaintance.
Days roll by and nobody from the palace comes to fetch her. Her father sends her to the royal court for their reunion, as she was pregnant with Dushyant’s child. While travelling, Shakuntala’s signet-ring accidentally drops into the river and gets lost.

When Shakuntala presents herself before the king, Dushyant, under the spell of the curse, fails to acknowledge her as his wife. Heart-broken, she pleads to the gods for help. The spell is broken when a fisherman finds the signet ring in the stomach of a fish – the same ring that Shakuntala had lost on her way to the court. The king suffers from an intense feeling of guilt and injustice. Shakuntala forgives Dushyant and they are reunited happily. She gives birth to a male child. He is called Bharat, he grew up to become a great king after whom India gets her name.

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