Memory, Metaphor and Mysticism in Kalidasas AbhijñnaŚkuntalam

Description

Review of an ancient literary text

A study of ‘AbhijñānaŚākuntalam’ has to situate the contexts in ancient through medieval Indian literature and scholarship before it comes to the colonial and the contemporary. In epistemological privileging, this text has become either a Hindoo play in the colonial, Hindu drama in the Hindutva and a love story in the Western theoretical paradigms of scholarship. The essays in ‘Memory, Metaphor and Mysticism in Kalidasa’s ‘AbhijñānaŚākuntalam’ attempt to restore contexts, especially philosophical contexts, for reading this play.

Acknowledgments; Introduction, Namrata Chaturvedi; Section I: Metre, Structure and Dhvani; 1. ‘Upamā Kālidāsasya’: What Makes Kālidāsa the King of Metaphor, Ramkishor Maholiya; 2. What Happens in ‘Śakuntalā’: Conceptual and Formal Symmetries, Sheldon Pollock; 3. From Separation to Unity: Resonances of Kashmir Śaivism in ‘AbhijñānaŚākuntalam’, H. S. Shivaprakash and Namrata Chaturvedi; 4. ‘Śakuntalā’ and the Bible: Parallels and Resonances, Felix Wilfred; Section II: Commentaries and Criticism; 5. Love on One’s Terms: Perspectives on ‘Gāndharva Vivāha’ in ‘AbhijñānaŚākuntalam’, Wagish Shukla; 6. ‘AbhijñānaŚākuntalam’ in Indian Hermeneutics, Radhavallabh Tripathi; 7. The Seeker Finds His Self: Reading ‘Sārārthadīpikā’, the Advaita Commentary on ‘AbhijñānaŚākuntalam’, Godabarisha Mishra; Section III: Varied Grammars of Love; 8. ‘Not a Tale, but a Lesson’: Persian Translations of Kālīdāsa’s ‘AbhijñānaŚākuntalam’, Sunil Sharma; 9. Śakuntala in Hindustani: Reading select Urdu translations of ‘AbhijñānaŚākuntalam’, Khalid Alvi; 10. Dialogue between Two ‘Mahākavis’: Kālidāsa and Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s Three ‘Śakuntalās’, Gokul Sinha; Section IV: On the Stage: Personal Engagements with a Lived Tradition; 11. Staging ‘Śakuntalā’ in India: Observations and Reflections, Kamlesh Dutt Tripathi; 12. From the Stage to the Classroom: Engagement with ‘Śakuntalā’, Sreenivas Murthy; Index.

Sujets

• Indo-Aryan languages
• Literary criticism
• Indic
• Asian

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 28 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785273223
• Langue: English

Extrait

Memory, Metaphor and Mysticism in Kālidāsa’s AbhijñānaŚākuntalam
Memory, Metaphor and Mysticism in Kālidāsa’s AbhijñānaŚākuntalam
Edited by
Namrata Chaturvedi
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2020
by ANTHEM PRESS
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© 2020 Namrata Chaturvedi editorial matter and selection; individual chapters © individual contributors
The moral right of the authors has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-320-9 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-320-5 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
For my father
Asto mā sadgamaya
Tamaso mā jyotirgamaya
Mrityormā amritamgamaya
Lead us
From untruth to truth
From darkness to light
From mortality to eternity
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Namrata Chaturvedi
Section I. METRE, STRUCTURE AND DHVANI
Chapter 1. ‘ Upamā Kālidāsasya ’: What Makes Kālidāsa the King of Metaphor
Ramkishor Maholiya
Chapter 2. What Happens in Śakuntalā : Conceptual and Formal Symmetries
Sheldon Pollock
Chapter 3. From Separation to Unity: Resonances of Kashmir Śaivism in AbhijñānaŚākuntalam
H. S. Shivaprakash and Namrata Chaturvedi
Chapter 4. Śakuntalā and the Bible: Parallels and Resonances
Felix Wilfred
Section II. COMMENTARIES AND CRITICISM
Chapter 5. Love on One’s terms: Perspectives on Gāndharva Vivāha in AbhijñānaŚākuntalam
Wagish Shukla
Chapter 6. AbhijñānaŚākuntalam in Indian Hermeneutics
Radhavallabh Tripathi
Chapter 7. The Seeker Finds His Self: Reading Sārārthadīpikā , the Advaita Commentary on AbhijñānaŚākuntalam
Godabarisha Mishra
Section III. VARIED GRAMMARS OF LOVE
Chapter 8. ‘Not a Tale, but a Lesson’: Persian Translations of Kālīdāsa’s AbhijñānaŚākuntalam
Sunil Sharma
Chapter 9. Śakuntalā in Hindustani: Reading Select Urdu Translations of AbhijñānaŚākuntalam
Khalid Alvi
Chapter 10. Dialogue between Two Mahākavis : Kālidāsa and Laxmi Prasad Devkotā’s Three Śakuntalās
Gokul Sinha
Section IV. ON THE STAGE: PERSONAL ENGAGEMENTS WITH A LIVED TRADITION
Chapter 11. Staging Śakuntalā in India: Observations and Reflections
Kamlesh Dutt Tripathi
Chapter 12. From the Stage to the Classroom: Engagement with Śakuntalā
J. Sreenivas Murthy
Notes on Contributors
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to all the contributors of this volume for sharing their erudition and passion for the sublime play of Kālidāsa. It is because of their dedicated scholarship and shared recognition of the richness of AbhijñānaŚākuntalam that we have all come together to offer another study on an already much studied text.
No endeavour can be completed without the contribution of many minds and hearts. The following are the names of people who have enriched and contributed to the shaping of this volume in multiple ways, through observations and casual discussions, unsolicited requests, comments and suggestions, encouragement, critical assessment and singing beautiful Prākrit chhands across the table: Prof. H. S. Shivaprakash, Dr Vibha S. Chauhan, Prof. Sukalpa Bhattacharjee, Prof. Arvind Sharma, Prof. Srinivas Murthy, Prof. Jayakumar, Prof. Gavin Flood, Prof. Patrick Colm Hogan, Dr Mohammed Afzal, Dr Ramkishor Maholiya, Dr Pankaj Sharma, Ms Garima Yadav and Ms Shubhra Dubey.
The library staff at Sahitya Akademi and Zakir Husain Delhi College facilitated out-of-turn requests, always with a smile that only those who understand the value of research can emit.
No result is worthwhile without hearts sharing in the joy. Those hearts that have come to me as my family and friends know they are an integral part of this book.
As I end this note, I wish to state that it is Anurag’s soul that has brought me the grace of love.
INTRODUCTION
Namrata Chaturvedi

Ramyāni vīkshya madhurāņshca nishamya shabdān
Paryutsukībhavati yatsukhitopi jantuh
Tacchetasā smarati nunamabodhapūrvam
Bhāvasthirāni jananāntarasauhradāni
( AbhijñānaŚākuntalam , V.2)

[Why do I feel a sense of anxiety even though I haven’t suffered separation from my loved one? On seeing beautiful things, on hearing melodious music, there is a sukkha that is pervaded by past memories.] 1
In the opening of the fifth act, just before the arrival of Śakuntalā to his court, Du ṣ yanta attributes his anxiety on hearing Hansapādika’s song to memories that are passed on through births. He also points out that engagement with art makes the stirring of these memories possible.
Sri M, a living nāth yogi, in one of his satsangas 2 (assembly of truth) describes, ‘All experience is [as] a memory.’ The need to store memory to be accessed again through sensorial forms is the consequence of the inability of human consciousness to realize truth. While one clings to the belief in the eternality of images, one is bound by the cycle of coming and going, living and dying. While a sensorial or pneumonic token is needed to prove existence, an individual is merely looking at appearance and denying herself the possibility of real witnessing. When Du ṣ yanta gives his ring to his beloved after a haunting episode of sensual love between the two, their relationship reaches a stage of spiritual deadlock. From this point, until they can be fully liberated, Du ṣ yanta and Śakuntalā will find themselves playing a game of hide-and-seek with the token (ring) evading them. Du ṣ yanta has to undergo a test through emotional cleansing as he has to experience remorse and guilt, while Śakuntalā has to undergo the heartbreaking experience of birthing and raising a son without his father. In his remorse, Du ṣ yanta tries to apprehend the form of Śakuntalā again and again by recreating her picture and invoking the brhamar and Mālati vine. He is still caught in the web of form, and he will next see Śakuntalā only when she has passed through another stage of life, that is, child birth. It had to fall upon Ŗshi Durvāsas, 3 an embodiment of Śiva’s anger, to bless the two (sleeping) lovers with real awakening. While Śakuntalā was unaware of herself by being lost in desire and doubt, the sage brings about a state of smriti avarodh , or obstruction of memory, in Du ṣ yanta’s citta (consciousness). Du ṣ yanta, on seeing Śakuntalā in his court, is neither able to reject her, nor can he completely deny ever knowing her. Naturally, the token, as an objective correlative of their love, goes missing at this point. From manifestation to disappearance to manifestation again, this play follows the advaita structure of one to two, two to one.
AbhijñānaŚākuntalam is a sublime text within a living tradition. This tradition is the world of dhvani that explores and absorbs resonances in Kāvya (literature). It has survived through ‘historicist, traditionalist and formalist’ hermeneutics to demonstrate the power of Kāvya for the moral-imaginative universe of humankind. The aesthetic universe of Kāvya is beyond the worldly dimension, and the sahrdaya (sensitive reader/viewer) is able to experience the non-worldly dimension of Kāvya jñāna through a process of expansion of consciousness as sādhāranikara ṇ a (generalization). Engagement with a text like Kālidāsa’s AbhijñānaŚākuntalam or Dante’s Divine Comedy reiterates the power of dhvani (suggestion) as an enriching mode of engagement. The resonances thus experienced on reading texts like these stir the memory of collective unconscious enabling the reader(s) to experience inspiration in its essence.
This study, while recognizing the valuable contributions of Oriental, nativist, formalist, philological and cultural materialist positions on AbhijñānaŚākuntalam , proposes that an aesthetic approach that keeps resonance in the centre can lead to paradigmatic synthesis of various modes of thought. The inspiration that a splendid shāyar in Urdu, Sāghar Nizāmī, recognizes in AbhijñānaŚākuntalam when he says that a text like this cannot be composed, but is a work of pure inspiration, 4 is an expression of universal human resonance that he experiences on reading (viewing) it. W