Week 14 Reading Diary: The Indian Storybook continued

The Indian Storybook by Richard Wilson

For the rest of this week's reading assignment, I finished reading the assigned stories in The Indian Storybook by Richard Wilson. The last story, Shakuntala, discusses the love story between King Dushyanta and Shakuntala. King Dushyanta meets the beautiful Shakuntala while he while on a hunting trip in the forest. (So much happens in the forest in the Mahabharata). The two fall in love with each other and get married, without Shakuntala's father knowing. Their witness was mother nature. When King Dushyanta had to leave, he promised he would send for someone to pick Shakuntala up. To show her his promise, he gives her a ring. One day, a sage visits Shakuntala, but she is so lost in her thoughts of King Dushyanta, that she does not hear the sage's calls. The sage becomes very angry and curses Shakuntala. He tells her that the man she is thinking about will not remember her. And King Dushyanta will only remember her if she comes up with a significant souvenir. Shakuntala is pregnant with the king's child, so her father sends her to the royal court. On the way, the ring she was given falls into the river. So when they met, King Dushyanta couldn't recognize his wife, because she was unable to present a significant souvenir. Shakuntala can't bare to live without King Dushyanta remembering her so she pleas to the gods to help her disappear from earth. After a fisherman finds the lost ring, King Dushyanta remembers his wife. They get back to each other and have a son, named Bharat. 

(King Dushyanta and Shakuntala. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Bibliography. The Indian Storybook, Richard Wilson. (1914)