The Rewriting of Myths

Posted by Harsh Nevatia May 10, 2007

Kalidas was a great Sanskrit playwright in the 4th century AD in the court of King Chandragupta Vikramaditya. He used as the subject for many of his plays stories from Hindu mythology. He often rewrote the plot to suit his contemporary audience or rather his royal masters as seen in his plays about Urvashi and Shakuntala.

The ancient myths have been retold generation after generation and something has been added or subtracted each time. Take for instance the movie Troy starring Brad Pitt. There are serious deviations from Homer’s narrative. Mr. K.M.Munshi, the famous Indian educationist and administrator, when rewriting the life of Krishna said, “ … I had often to depart from the legend and myth, for such reconstruction by a modern author must necessarily involve the exercise of whatever little imagination he has.”

The purpose of the deviation has differed from writer to writer. Mr. Munshi has presented Krishna as more human than divine. He wanted to pass the message that humans have the capacity to combat evil. The recent movie Troy deviated because it wanted to show Achilles as the hero of the Trojan War rather than as one of the heroes and thereby create a role befitting the stature of Brad Pitt.

Kalidas had his own reasons for deviating from the storyline as found in the Epics and Puranas. Kalidas lived on the patronage of the King. Through the character of his male protagonists he showed the populace the character their king claimed to have – valiant, skilled, kind, romantic and everything good. Kalidas’ hero could not be flawed because that would be a slur against the king. Unfortunately many of the characters in the Epics and Puranas were human and had flaws. So Kalidas had to rewrite the plot eliminating the flaws.

Abhigyan Shakuntalam is Kalidas’ most famous work, which depicts the love story of King Dushyant and Shakuntala, a hermit’s daughter. This story is told in both the Bhagavata Purana and the Mahabharata. In these versions King Dushyant meets Shakuntala in the forest and indices her to marry him without the usual ceremony. After consummating the marriage he leaves for his capital promising to call her there later. But he neglects to do so. Shakuntala bears his child and later goes to Dushyant on her own. Though Dushyant remembers her he publicly denies having met her and insults her. Later the demi-Gods compel him to accept Shakuntala. Now this is hardly a suitable trait in a righteous king so Kalidas had to find a reason for Dushyant neglecting to call Shakuntala and publicly rejecting her claim. So he rewrote the plot. Before leaving for his capital Dushyant gave Shakuntala his ring as a proof of their union. Soon after Dushyant left Shakuntala failed to greet the hotheaded sage Durvasa because she was lost in Dushyant’s thoughts. The sage put a curse on her that her lover would forget her unless and until she showed him the gift he had given her. So it was not Dushyant’s fault that he failed to call Shakuntala. Later when Shakuntala goes to the capital, she accidentally drops the ring in a river. Unable to show the gift, the sage’s curse remains active and Dushyant does not remember. Later the ring is found in a fish caught by a fisherman and brought to the king. Dushyant now remembers everything and goes to Shakuntala to make amends. Thus the broader storyline remains intact and the king’s character is not sullied.