I Know Who I Was...
Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms and the fruits of its decline,
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed?
Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine?
I name thee, O Shakuntala, and all at once is said.
(Eastwich's translation of Goethe's paen on Shakuntala)
I am proud of my name, a name, which dates back centuries, a name which is more than 2000 years old. King Dushyanta is first mentioned in Sage Vyasa Mahabharata . The Mahabharata is the longest epic poem in the world written originally in Sanskrit, which was completed in the first century BC, and some parts of it dates back to 8th century BC. Dushyanta is said to have ruled from Gandhara (present day Kandahar in Afghanistan) to the Vindhyas and from Sindhu (present-day Pakistan) to Vanga (present day Bangladesh).
The poet Kalidasa also mentions King Dushyanta in his play Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Recognition of Shakuntala). This play written in Sanskrit is dated between 1 BC and 5 BC and was translated to German and to English. In this play, Dushyanta meets Shakuntala in a hermitage, falls in love with her and marries her. Promising to be back to take her, he departs giving her a royal ring as sign of their love. During this time, a sage visits the hermitage, but Shakuntala absorbed in her love for Dushyanta forgets to serve him food. The sage curses her saying the person whom she thinks of will forget her. Shakuntala begs for forgiveness and the sage then assures her that the person will remember her when he sees a proof of acquaintance. As the sage says, King Dushyanta gets busy in the affairs of the state and remembers Shakuntala only after the ring is presented to him.
One interesting link which I stumbled upon was about the 1914 Berkeley production of Shakuntala at the University of California, Berkeley which can be found here.
I thank my grandfather, R.N Maratt the erudite scholar for christening me with a name, which is profound in meaning and ageless. Right from when I was a kid, I remember people asking me "Where is Shakuntala?", when I introduce myself. At least now, I can tell them, she's waiting in India for me now...
Electronic References can be found at
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sha/index.htm
http://www.indolink.com/Kidz/Stories/mahabharat1.html
http://www.bashr.com/en_bio_pics/Dushyanth
http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc60.html