I await your command. Dushyanta : I have come to pay my respects to the venerated Rishi Kanwa. Tell me, O amiable and beautiful one, where has the illustrious Rishi gone? Sakuntala : My illustrious father has gone to fetch fruit for the hermitage alongwith the inmates. Wait but a moment and you wilt meet him when he arrives. Her flawlees features stood enhanced by freedom and humility in her speech. She looked the ascetic but he saw the bloom of her youth. Dushyanta : Who are you, truly, O beautiful one?
Why are you in these woods? You are gifted with such beauty and virtues. Whence have you come? O charming one, you affect my heart deeply. I desire to learn all about you; therefore, tell me all. Shakuntala smiled and addressed him with these words : O Dushyanta, I am the daughter of virtuous, wise and illustrious ascetic, Rishi Kanwa.
Dushmanta : The blessed Rishi is universally revered. It well known that decades of celibate austerity to rigorous vow and extended periods of withdrawal from senses during meditation has caused his seed to sublimate up from its base in the reproductive organ.
Dharma himself may stray from his course but an ascetic of rigid vows, such as Rishi Kanva is, can never descend to sensory matters. Therefore, O thou of fairest complexion, how have you been born as his daughter? It is a sincere doubt of mine that urgently needs to be dispelled.
Shakuntala : Hear, O king, what I have learnt regarding all that befell me of old and how I became the daughter of the Muni. It was narrated by the Rishi Kanva himself to another who had posed the same question.
Vishwamitra, of old, was engaged in austere-most of penances that alarmed Indra, the chief of the celestials. Indra thought that the mighty ascetic of blazing energy would, by his penance, hurl him down from his high seat in heaven. Therefore, amiable one, do me this service. Hear carefully : This great ascetic, Vishwamitra, like Sun in splendour, is engaged in the most severe of penances.
I am afraid, if he succeeds at acquiring the merit in his quest, he might challenge my position as the head of all gods, and verily unseat me. Hence, O slender-waist, this is the task for you to accomplish. Go, tempt Vishwamitra away from his rapture, disrupt his one-pointed contemplation and penance, and frustrate his certain quest.
Win him off his penance, beautiful one, by luring him with your beauty, youth, agreeableness, arts, smiles and speech. Hearing all this, Menaka was alarmed and very unsure of herself. She respectfully gave voice to her doubt : O foremost among the gods, the illustrious Vishwamitra is a mighty ascetic and is already endued with great power.
He is very short-tempered too. His energy, merit acquired of penance, and the wrath of a high-soul such as he leave me diffident and anxious of my own well-being. He made even the great Rishi Vasishtha suffer the unbearable pain of witnessing the premature death of his children. He it was who, though born a warrior, became a man of knowledge by virtue of his ascetic rigour. He created a deep river of his own power, for purposes of his ablutions.
It was Viswamitra who, in anger, created a second world and numerous stars, and granted protection to royal sage, Matanga, later known as Trishanku, against your own wrath. I am frightened, O Indra, to approach him. Menaka further asked : Tell me, O Indra, the means that should be adopted so that I may not be burnt by his wrath.
He can burn the three worlds by his splendour and can, by a mere stamp of his foot, cause the earth to quake. He can sever the great Meru from the earth and hurl it to any distance. He can go round the ten points of the earth in a moment. How can a woman like me even touch such a one, who is full of ascetic virtues, like unto a blazing fire, and who has his passions in complete control? His mouth is like a flaming inferno; the pupils of his eyes are like the Sun and the Moon; his tongue is like that of Death himself.
How shall I, O chief of the celestials, a woman like me even touch him? How can a woman like me gaze at him without alarm? But the first amongst celestial Apsaras submitted : Commanded by you, however, O king of the celestials, I shall somehow approach that Rishi. But, O chief of the gods, devise thou a plan whereby protected by you, I may safely move about the great ascetic. I think that when I begin to play before the Rishi, Marut the god of wind had better go there and rob me of my dress, and Manmatha the god of love must also, at your command, help me at the task.
Let Marut, when it occasions, bear thither fragrance from the woods to tempt the Rishi. And Manmatha cause a pine in his vitality and a flutter in his heart on account of my presence. She offered her respectful salutations to the Rishi and began her ever so subtle sensual sport, while engaging him on a walk in the woods around his abode.
She was draped in a cloth white as the moon, which Marut soon caused to fly with a gush of wind. Abashed, she ran after her garment, to catch hold of it, and expressed her distress and annoyance at Marut when the garment continued to remain out of her reach.
Eyeing the sensual sport of the fullsome woman barely half clad, her dazzling beauty being played about by the breeze, exerting her fair limbs in distress, unmidful of the rise and fall of her soft breasts, Viswamitra was roused with sensual affection, causing his lust to gather like a ball of fire.
Beholding her thus exposed, the sage saw her ageless and exceedingly handsome form, her perfectly endowed features, and was drawn enough to move up and put his arm about her waist in companionship. He kissed her on the neck, inviting intimacy, to which Menaka responded.
They spent a long time in physical intimacy, sporting with each other, just as they pleased, as if time had stopped. Menaka conceived through their conjugal bliss and delivered a daughter. She moved to the banks of the river Malini coursing along a valley of the charming mountains of Himavat, as her pregnancy advanced. She left the new-born on the bank of the river and went away, never to look back. Lying in that desolation abounding with carnivores and other ferocios animals, the infant was protected by scores of vultures, who stood guard around her.
Kanva narrated : Those vultures protected the daughter of Menaka. I went there to perform my ablutions and beheld the infant lying in solitude of the wilderness, surrounded by vultures. Bringing her hither as I would my own daughter, I raised her as such. Indeed, the maker of the body, the protector of life and the giver of food are fathers — all three, in their order, as the scriptures suggest. And because she was surrounded by Shakunts birds , I named her Sakuntala. O Brahman, know that it is thus Sakuntala has become my daughter.
And so does the faultless Shakuntala also regards me, as her father. Shakuntala concluded her story to Dushyanta : This is what my father had narrated to the visiting Rishi, O king of men. It is thus how I am the daughter of Rishi Kanwa. Hearing the fascinating tale, King Dushyanta said : You spoke well, O princess, this that thou hast said! Be my wife, O beautiful one! What shall I do for thee? Golden garlands, robes, ear-rings, white pearls, coins of great value, finest carpets, … from various countries.
All these I shall present to you this very day. Let the whole of my kingdom be thine today, O charming one!
Come to me, shed the timidity, and join me through the wedding, O elegant maiden, in accord with Gandharva norm. O thou, of tapering thighs, of all forms of marriage rites, the Gandharva is considered the foremost. Shakuntala heard the King and indicated consent, but with relative calm : O king, my father is presently away. Wait but a moment; he will bestow me on thee. Know thou that I exist for thee, and my heart is in thee. The birthplace of Emperor Bharata, it is also said to be the locale where Chandrakiran Maharaj, a sage of the twentieth century, made his own base.
Some versions of the legend narrate that it was here that Kanva had set up his ashrama and also the place where he found the abandoned baby Shakuntala. Here, one can find some ancient unexplored caves. There's especially one cave, which is believed to have no end and is currently closed to the public by the Government. Kapila Kapila is the name given to different individuals in ancient and medieval texts, of which the best known is the founder of the Samkhya School of Hindu philosophy.
He is accredited as the author of the Samkhya-sutra, in which aphoristic sutras bring forth the dualistic philosophy of the school of thought. Kapila also influenced Buddhism in a big way. Interestingly, several historical figureheads in Hinduism and Jainism, as well as mythical figures, pilgrimage sites and even an ancient breed of cows have been given the name Kapila.
The most famous reference is to the great Rishi, with his student Asuri. These two personalities are considered to be the first masters of the Samkhya school. Beyond the Samkhya theories, Kapila also features in many dialogues of Hindu texts, explaining various other theories such as Ahimsa non-violence in the Mahabharata. Iconography The Agamas depict Rishi Kapila with a beard, seated in the padmasana pose, with closed eyes.
He has a jata-mandala around the head, showing high shoulders, indicating his extreme control over breath. He is shown draped in deer skin, wearing yagnopavita, with a kamandalu kept near him.
He has one hand placed in front of crossed legs and his feet are marked with lines resembling the outline of a lotus. The Vaikhanasasagama depicts Kapila in a different way. It places the Rishi as an avaranadevata and allocates the south-east corner of the first avarana to him. His image is kept facing the east and he is shown having eight arms, of which four on the right are in abhaya mudra.
The other three carry the Chakra, Khadga and Hala. The remaining left hand rests on the hip in the katyavarlambita pose. This implies that a Yajurveda school was named after a Kapila. The term "Kapileya", which means a "clan of Kapila", features in the Aitareya Brahmana. However, it does not talk about the original Kapila.
In the Bhagavata Purana , Kapila relates to his mother the philosophy of yoga and theistic dualism. His Samkhyasutra is also described though Krishna to Uddhava in Book 11 of the Bhagavata Purana, in the passage which is better known as the Uddhava Gita.
The parisista of the Atharva Veda too makes mention of Kapila, Asuri and Panchasikha, in connection with a ritual for whom tarpana is to be offered. In the Puranas Rishi Kapila receives prominent mention in several Puranas as well. The following are some of the most important instances: Kapila as the Sleeping Vishnu In the Brahma Purana, when the evil King Vena abandoned the Vedas and declared that he was the only creator of dharma. He had crossed all the limits of dharma and was eventually destroyed and killed.
Then, Kapila advised sages to churn Vena's thigh, from which came out Nishadas. From his right hand emerged Prithu, who made the earth a productive place, all over again. Kapila and the sages then went to Kapilasangama, a holy place where several rivers met.
The Purana also describes Kapila in the context of Sagara's 60, sons, who were looking for their Ashwamedha horse. They happened to disturb Vishnu , who was sleeping in the form of Kapila. He woke up and looked at them. The brilliance in his eyes burnt all but four of Sagara's sons to ashes. These four then carried forth the Sagara lineage. According to the Padma and Skanda Puranas, he is Lord Vishnu himself, who descended on earth to disseminate true knowledge.
The Bhagavata Purana refers to him as Vedagarbha Vishni. The name Kapila features as one of the Sahasranamas of Vishnu. In his commentary on the Samkhyasutra, Vijnanabhikshu describes Kapila as Vishnu. Narada Purana Book. Markandeya Purana Book. Vishnu Purana Book. Some experts today believe that many of these texts were never written by Parashara himself, but by individuals who used his name on those texts, so that they would become important. They named him Shakti Maharishi. He in turn sired Parashara.
With his wife Satyavati, Parashara sired Vyasa, who was the father of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, as mentioned in the Mahabharata. Vyasa also had Ambika and Ambalika with his deceased brother's wives and Vidura through a maid of Ambika and Ambalika. It's an honor to be asked. Related Themes: Duty vs. Page Number and Citation : 29 Cite this Quote. Explanation and Analysis:. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1. King to receive the hospitality of the nearby hermitage, which belongs to the great sage Kanva. Vaikhanasa then explains that Kanva himself is not at home, because he has gone to appease the gods on behalf He watches her more intently.
As Shakuntala loosens her chafing Act 2. Just then, two seers are ushered in with a message from Kanva. Act 3. Let us worship the holy rishi and be blessed. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. All Rights Reserved.
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