This chapter is really the soap opera involving his parents.
The Mahabharata is technically the story of Bharata and his very extended family over many generations. Just so you know, it’s pronounced ma-ha-bhaaaa-ra-ta, but the fellow himself is Bha-ra-ta, no lengthy drawl on any of the ‘a’s, thank you. As you’d expect, most versions of the Mahabharata begin with the story of Bharata. I’ve thrown in a simplified genealogy of life before Bharata, so you know some of the names. The key thing here is that all the kids of Aditi were called the “Aditya” and were in general considered the good guys. Yes, same name as your cousin. Basically, Aditya means “son of Aditi”.
But you told me before that Aditya meant sun.
Yeah, right. Surya, the Sun, is one of the rockstar sons of Aditi and would be the most popular Aditya. It’s also a super popular name for Indian boys. Kinda easy to see why. Rolls of the tongue easily, easily shortened to Adi, and likely to be at the beginning of any alphabetized list. But there are a ton of other characters that qualify as Aditya-son-of-aditi. You know some of them – Garuda, Aruna, Yama?
Seriously ma, how d’you think I know any of them!!
Nvm. Making note that there’s a potential for a side story there, and I’ll save it for a future hyperlink.
Aditi was the wife of Kashyapa. Now, Kashyapa had a second wife, Diti. To balance out things in the world and to save us from overly boring goodness, all of Diti’s kids were the in-general bad guys and were called the Daityas. Aditi-Aditya; Diti-Daitya. Geddit?
So in the long line of Adityas, came the handsome Dushyanta, the king of Hastinapura. He was off gallivanting in the forest for some R and R, making full use of his hunting license for the season. He happened to come by the ashrama of the rishi Kanva. Might as well learn those two words rishi and ashrama – they’re going to be coming around a lot. A Rishi is a person that’s gone off the grid, cut out all the social media, and is generally living a chill sensible life. An Ashrama is where a rishi lives and is usually an eco-friendly secluded spot in the woods, usually with a tiny home, and which requires some serious hiking to get to. Sometimes rishis live in groups, sometimes alone but you’ll notice they inevitably end up playing one role or the other in our story. You’re bouncing along with the story of X king, when you’ll get an X king Feat. Y rishi number when you least expect it.
So Dushyanta comes to Kanva’s ashrama. The rishi is off on his rishi business someplace, and there’s only his daughter Shakuntala around.
How come rishis have daughters? Do they have families? I was imagining some off grid loner types.
Hmm good question. Some rishis are solid loners and are into extreme survival and all that. Others are less fussed and more social. Rishiness is somewhere between meditate-while-standing-on-one-leg-for-500 years and follow-some-general-guidelines-on-minimally-social-living… so let’s just say we’ll encounter all kinds. However in this case, Shakuntala turns out to be Kanva’s adopted daughter. Her biological father is another rishi Vishwamitra, and her mum’s Menaka, an apsara. Apsaras are beautiful women, supernatural beings, on the lower rungs somewhere between gods and regular humans. Music and dance is their gig. Like rishis, they keep turning up in the stories, helping people, seducing people, cursing people. Rishis and apsaras are a common and explosive combination.
So, Dushyanta has a full on love attack and wants to marry Shakuntala, and you know, get on with it. Shakuntala finds the king attractive enough and is ready to also, well, get on with it. To keep the record clean – and records of these things have implications when kings are involved – they do get kinda sorta married in the forest. But seeing as the wedding vows and reception involved only two love struck people, some random wildlife, and no human witnesses, it didn’t quite tick the legal checkboxes. Well, there’s only so much love-struck people will wait before they get on with it… to hell with the legalities!
In some days Kanva comes back and finds his daughter newly but not quite legally married, and maybe pregnant. But Dushyanta is a good guy, more than meets the criteria for good husband material, so Kanva sees no real reason to kick up a fuss about it all. After a round of hugging, feet-touching and congratulations all around, Dushyanta announces he needs to get back to his capital pronto and that Shakuntala can come catch up with him later.
How come he didn’t take her with him? I thought they were in love? Was he dumping her?
Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe he was dumping her. Or maybe he had some kingly appointments and things. Maybe she had morning sickness. Maybe she wanted to chill with her dad and pack in peace. In any case, it was pretty normal for people who could ride horse back to go on ahead and leave the rest of the party to come on slower, but less demanding forms of travel.
What happens next depends on the version you have on hand. As I promised before, I’m just going with the version I know / remember the most about. For everything else there’s the internet and the libraries.
Shakuntala is sitting around dreamy eyed and dans la lune. Mostly thinking about Dushyanta, I guess. Another guest turns up at the ashrama. Kanva’s made it a routine to not be around when guests come in, by the look of it! This time it is the rishi Durvasa who has quite the reputation for his short fuse. A senior rishi like Durvasa comes around, and the protocol is to jump to one’s feet, roll out the red carpet, arrange for a spa, get cooking and so on. For absent minded Shakuntala, this was an epic fail. Observing the lack of anything remotely welcoming, Durvasa’s fuse goes off, and he’s cursing Shakuntala before the girl has a chance to snap out of it. “You’re ignoring me? May the person you’re dreaming of ignore and forget you too!”, and he’s all set to storm off in a huff. Shakuntala’s friend who catches all this action at the last minute makes a pitch to save the day. Shakuntala’s distracted, she says. Love struck. Look at her puppy dog eyes. Give the girl a break, please. She quickly gives the rishi the lowdown on all the things going on in Shakuntala’s life.
Maybe Durvasa was in a good mood. Or maybe he was so used to living up to his short temper reputation and had just cursed out of habit. Or maybe the friend was super convincing. In any case, Durvasa decided to reconsider. Can’t you undo this curse thing? The friend asks. Nope, those nasty ones can’t be undone, said Durvasa. But there might be a workaround. Does Shakuntala have anything the man gave her? Well, there’s that gold ring he gave her when they were having their marriage officiated by the deer and the parrots. That should do, says Durvasa. Once the man sees this ring, he’ll remember her again, and all will be well. Phew, thought the friend. That should be simple enough, the girl never takes that clunky thing off her finger.
Remember, Shakuntala was still out of it all, and was still not aware of all this doing and undoing happening. Beats me why the friend never mentions it to her!
In a bit, it’s time for Shakuntala to go off to Hastinapura to join her man. So off they go in a little party, Shakuntala and a couple of other ashram folk. It’s a long journey, and a good bit of resting and stopping and starting. Shakuntala steps in a river to wash her grimy face and get a good drink of water – and because we need the drama – the big clunky ring on her finger slips out and disappears into the river. You’d think one would notice if a big heavy thing fell off your finger. But to the preoccupied girl, it doesn’t register at all.
Soon they arrive at Hastinapura, and of course Dushyanta has forgotten all about everything. Durvasa’s clearly an expert and had high professional standards. There’s much hand wringing and angry crying on the Shakuntala team, and much sniggering and insinuations about gold digging on team Dushyanta.
Huh. The guy was super sus. He was dumping her I think. He probably would have conveniently forgotten her anyway curse or no curse.
Interesting you should say that. What I’m telling you is a riff off of a version written by Kalidasa, in his play Ahbijnana Shakuntala. Kalidasa as a writer was playing to his subscriber base who were clamoring for a shiny good hero and a beautiful damsel in distress, like the older Disney movies. So, the induced amnesia angle was a good trick to keep the hero smelling like roses. In other versions, Shakuntala is more feisty. Dushyanta and she just have sex in the woods but only after she makes him promise that their son, when born, will be the king of Hastinapura. In this version, Dushyanta straight out denies the pre-nup agreement. It still results in angry crying and sniggering when they meet again, but the motivations are less Disney-ish. If you don’t mind, I’ll just continue remixing Kalidasa’s version because it’s the one I know more about.
Ok. Disney movies work for me some days. Especially if there’s a nice song or two.
You want me to add some songs here? I could do that. How about this? And this?
Whatever.
It’s a stalemate in the palace at Hastinapura. Shakuntala’s mum Menaka (the apsara, remember?) gets to know of the situation, turns up like a good supportive mum should, spits in the face of the man who’s treating her daughter like shit, and takes her away to heaven. Or another ashrama, I am not sure which, and leaves her in the care of rishi Maricha. And Dushyanta goes on with his life.
In Kalidasa’s version, the drama continues. One day, Dushyanta’s soldiers drag in a poor fisherman. He has your clunky gold ring, your majesty. Was trying to sell it off, they said. Not fair, protests the fisherman. I was happily cutting up this fish I caught for dinner. And I swear I found the ring in the fish’s stomach. The fish must have swallowed it someplace for all I know. What clunky ring, mutters Dushyanta, and then on seeing the said clunky ring, has a serious flashback. What I have done, he wails dramatically. Cue the violins. Where now is the love of my life? But it’s too late. Shakuntala’s gone and he’s left to mope around till we can work in a plot twist for a happy ending.
Soon enough, Shakuntala’s kid is born at Maricha’s ashrama and he’s called Bharata. Yeah, the beginner of the Mahabharata, the one we started this chapter with. About six years pass by and the kid’s predictably healthy and cute and unpredictably, wrestles lion cubs for fun. Kittens and babies. The internet would have gone wild if it had existed. Just to keep the kid safe they had put on a protective charm around his arm. (You’d agree a lion cub wrestling kid would need some sort of protective gear!). This one was apparently biometrics encoded. Only the biological parents would be able to take it off or put it on. Shakuntala just kept it on all the time, and scrubbed around it at bath time.
Bharata is playing in the forest with his lion cubs when, what a coincidence, Dushyanta is out, again, on some R and R. Or he’s still moping around and looking for some time away from his annoying palace mob. Here he is strolling along and finds this child with the lion cubs and, like all of the internet, pauses to watch the kittens. And yes, also the kid. The kid’s protective charm has fallen off and being an otherwise decent guy, Dushyanta picks it up to put it back on the child’s arm. Cue more dramatic music as Shakuntala and Maricha and the rest turn up at just the moment to witness the infallible authenticity of biometrics in action. And then there are voices from the sky informing Dushyanta that this is his own true blood etc. So now everybody and his uncle accepts Bharata as the rightful prince of Hastinapura and all is well. The credits start rolling on this chapter.
And in the other version, how does Bharata get to be king?
There’s always a voice from the sky that clears up the air in these stories. Something like that must have happened. Voice from the sky trumps voice of your conscience.
Or the voice of your wife or girlfriend.
Yeah.
Manasvini 
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