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Updated: May 19, 2025
He sends the jester as his substitute to the city. He is now at leisure to seek out the love-sick Sakuntala who is drooping on account of her love for the king and is discovered lying on a bed of flowers in an arbour. He comes to the hermitage, overhears her conversation with her two friends, shows himself and offers to wed her. For a second time, the lovers thus meet.
And he begat on her a son named Bharata. "The mother is but the sheath of flesh in which the father begets the son. Indeed the father himself is the son. Therefore, O Dushmanta, support thy son and insult not Sakuntala. O god among men, the father himself becoming the son rescueth himself from hell. Sakuntala hath truly said that thou art the author of this child's being.
And the faultless Sakuntala also regards me as her father. "This is what my father had said unto the Rishi, having been asked by him. O king of men, it is thus that thou must know I am the daughter of Kanwa. And not knowing my real father, I regard Kanwa as my father. Thus have I told thee, O king, all that hath been heard by me regarding my birth!"
Put away by thee, I am ready to return to the refuge of my father. But it behoveth thee not to cast off this child who is thy own. "Hearing all this, Dushmanta said, 'O Sakuntala, I do not know having begot upon thee this son. Women generally speak untruths. Who shall believe in thy words?
"Vaisampayana said, 'After Dushmanta had left the asylum having made those promises unto Sakuntala, the latter of tapering thighs brought forth a boy of immeasurable energy. And when the child was three years old, he became in splendour like the blazing fire. And, O Janamejaya, he was possessed of beauty and magnanimity and every accomplishment.
And Sakuntala having worshipped the king according to proper form, told him, 'This is thy son, O king! Let him be installed as thy heir- apparent. O king, this child, like unto a celestial, hath been begotten by thee upon me. Therefore, O best of men, fulfil now the promise thou gavest me.
Even Dharma himself might fall off from his course but an ascetic of rigid vows can never fall off so. Therefore, O thou of the fairest complexion, how hast thou been born as his daughter? This great doubt of mine it behoveth thee to dispel. "Sakuntala then replied, 'Hear, O king, what I have learnt regarding all that befell me of old and how I became the daughter of the Muni.
"Sakuntala, having listened to all this, answered, 'If this be the course sanctioned by religion, if, indeed, I am my own disposer, hear, O thou foremost one of Puru's race, what my terms are. Promise truly to give me what I ask thee. The son that shall be begotten on me shall become thy heir-apparent. This, O king, is my fixed resolve.
Sakuntala requests the king to wait till her foster-father Kanwa, who had gone out on a pilgrimage, would come back and give his consent. But the king, becoming importunate, she at last gives her consent. They are married according to the gandharva form, on the condition that the issue of the marriage should occupy the throne of Hastinapur.
The king feels thirsty and was seeking water when he saw certain maidens of the hermits watering the favourite plants. One of them, an exquisitely beautiful and bashful maiden, named Sakuntala, received him. She was the daughter of the celestial nymph Menaka by the celebrated sage Viswamitra and foster-child of the hermit Kanwa.
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