Śakoontalá Act 1

King Dushyanta, prince of Puru’s lineage, proposes Śakoontalá, daughter of the sage Vishwamitra and nymph Menaka and raised up by Rishi Kanwa, in his hermitage, as a fawn looks up. Painting by Raja Ravi Varma. Sourced from ‘Wellcome Images’ in the United Kingdom. Library Reference Number: ICV No 45729, Photo number: V0045115.

The Cosmographia Podcast season 3 is out now! Listen to Śakoontalá Act 1 - Part 1 from the album ‘Cosmographia: The Graeco-Romans, the Egyptians and Us - season - 3’ on Gaana, JioSaavn, Apple, Spotify, and a host of other worldwide streaming platforms! Herein Season-3, Episode-1, is a translation of Kalidasa’s famous literary masterpiece Abhijnanam Shakuntalam, probably the best work produced in the Sanskritic literature, by Sir Monier Williams, the second Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, as done in the early 19th century. Innumerable archaic English words have been used in this play but they only add to the beauty of it, rather than making it what one may deem difficult. The act has been narrated until Dushyanta’s entry into the hermitage of Saint Kanwa and the remaining part of the Act 1 will be out in the next episode. Since the drama Śakoontalá entails a total of 7 acts, it would take 14 episodes to complete the entire literary masterpiece in its translated version. Till then, stay tuned to Cosmographia! Link to the podcast episode is at: https://lnkd.in/eUP3g6iN

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