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KalidasaThe Recognition of Sakuntala
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 400A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Signet Ring
Dusyanta’s signet ring is a key motif and symbol in the play, illustrating the theme of Memory and Forgetting. The ring also serves as a crucial plot device, since it becomes tied to the curse of Durvasas and is the means of alleviating it, as “a sight of a memento can lift the curse” (44).
A signet ring refers to a ring that was worn by kings and other powerful figures. Often, the king pressed the ring into documents or clay tablets to stamp them. When Priyamvada and Anasuya first spot the ring on the king’s finger in Act I, they immediately recognize it as belonging to a royal. Dusyanta’s signet ring bears the inscription of his name: Dusyanta notes that he asked Sakuntala to use the ring to count each syllable of his name every day they spent apart until he would send for her. In giving her this ring, Dusyanta is signifying both his commitment to her and the idea that she now belongs to him, turning the ring into a symbol of his love. When Sakuntala loses the ring and cannot break the curse that causes Dusyanta to forget her, the ring becomes a symbol of forgetting and loss.
The very title of the play is linked with the sight of this memento, since AbhijnanaSakuntala means “the recognition of Sakuntala with the help of a sign.” In the final act of the play, Dusyanta tries to return his ring to Sakuntala, but she states she no longer wants it, as “I don’t trust it now” (100). The ring therefore has both positive and negative connotations in the play. In the positive sense, it symbolizes memory, recognition, marriage vows, and love; in a negative sense, the ring is also a symbol of treachery, forgetting, and loss.
Nature
Nature is a central motif in the play, illustrating the theme of Nature’s Purity Versus Urban Corruption. With Acts I through IV set at the hermitage, the natural landscape sets a mood of innocence and purity. Trees, deer, red geese, lotuses, mimosas, and bees are mentioned often in this section, representing the power and beauty of nature and forming an idyllic backdrop for the beginning of Sakuntala and Dusyanta’s love story and secret marriage.
Later, in Dusyanta’s court, Sakuntala tries to jog his memory by reminding him of her adopted son, the fawn “Almond Eyes” (65), whom Dusyanta had fondly dubbed a “forest creature” (65) like his mother Sakuntala. Dusyanta assumes Sakuntala has made up this story, with his rejection of the pastoral memory reflecting his rejection of the more natural and tender part of his own being. Significantly, when Dusyanta does regain his memory, he immediately returns to a forest-like setting: the lush royal gardens in Act VI. Thus, nature and natural creatures are associated with memory, beauty, love, and faithful marriage—a connection that is cemented when Dusyanta and Sakuntala are finally reconciled in the celestial hermitage.
The Painting of Sakuntala
In Act VI, Dusyanta calls for a painting of Sakuntala he has been drawing. The painting depicts the first time he saw Sakuntala, as she entered the grove with Anasuya and Priyamvada to water the trees. Contemplating the painting, Dusyanta goes through a myriad of emotions, his grief reaching a peak. Though the painting is extremely realistic (as noted by an eavesdropping Sanumati), to Dusyanta it is still only a “mirage” (80), falling short of the real Sakuntala. The painting thus becomes an important symbol of the gap between reality and fantasy, and Memory and Forgetting.
The sequence includes an extended metaphor, with the painting of Sakuntala symbolizing everything Dusyanta has found and lost. At one point, he paints in the River Malati, the deer, the lotuses and other signs of the ashram. The very process of painting becomes a metaphor for loss, where memory can never bring back what one misses. A tear from Dusyanta’s own eye falls on Sakuntala’s image and blurs the pigment of the paint, emphasizing his repentance.
The painting also ties in with the motif of the painted image in the text. When Dusyanta departs from the grove, Priyamvada describes her friend as so lost in love that “[Sakuntala] seems like a girl in a painting” (44, emphasis added). When the friends and the women hermits dress up Sakuntala for her journey to the city, they remark that they will try to adorn Sakuntala “as [they]’ve seen it done in paintings” (48, emphasis added). In Act VII, Matali describes the vault of heaven as decorated with Dusyanta’s victory through paintings and stories sketched by celestial nymphs on the canvas of celestial tree leaves. Since paintings and art record and reinterpret reality and evoke emotions, the motif of paintings is tied up with the theme of Memory and Forgetting.
