BOOKS AUGUST 13, 2008 CLAY SANSKRIT LIBRARY New York University
Press Toward the end of the Sakuntala, the most famous of the
three surviving plays by Kalidasa--the poet usually considered
the finest in ancient India--the hero Dushyanta offers this
poignant self-analysis: Like someone staring at an elephantwho
says, "There is no elephant here,"and who then, as it moves
away,feels a certain doubtand later, seeing its footprints,is
certain: "An elephanthas been here"--such are the subtleworkings
of my mind. Or of any mind--the rueful king speaks for all of
us. We almost always miss the elephant in front of us. By the
time we make our retrospective deduction from the footprints,
it's usually too late. Dushyanta is describing the results of a
self-inflicted trauma. There was a woman whom he loved more than
a man has ever loved a woman; but for various reasons that have
a lot to do with the above-mentioned elephant, when Sakuntala,
this beloved woman who is pregnant with Dushyanta's child, turns
up in the royal co