7 h 28 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 28 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A king enters a sacred grove, and love draws him between the quiet forest and the demands of court.
In Kālidāsa’s Shakuntala, King Dushyanta follows a deer into a forest where hermits stop his hunt. There he meets Shakuntala, the gentle young woman raised by Kanva. Their love grows, but the king must return to his capital and its duties. A short-tempered sage’s curse puts their bond to the test.
Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works also brings you the play Urvashi Won by Valor, with King Pururavas and the heavenly nymph Urvashi, and the poem Meghaduta, the Cloud Messenger. Across these plays and poems, old myths meet tender feeling and humor. Rivers, flowers, and changing seasons give longing a vivid setting.
What you’ll discover
- Love between two worlds Follow Shakuntala and Dushyanta as forest life meets the claims of a royal court.
- Friends beside the heroine Meet loyal Anasuya and playful Priyamvada, whose friendship brings warmth to Shakuntala’s story.
- A message through clouds Share a lonely spirit’s longing as he asks a passing cloud to carry word home.
- Myth with tender feeling Enter the tale of Pururavas and Urvashi, where a king loves a heavenly nymph.
- The Sanskrit stage Discover wise hermits, gentle jesters, and prologues that welcome readers into the world of a play.
Who will love it
This is for readers who love poetry and drama, stories of love and separation, Indian myth, and verse full of flowers, rivers and mountains.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Kalidasa leaves us his works, not his biography
- A hunting king meets a hermit's daughter
- A careless moment brings a curse and a farewell
- The king forgets, and a ring finds its way home
- Kalidasa turns an old epic tale into drama
- Two lighter plays about kings who fall in love
- The Dynasty of Raghu sings of a line of kings
- The Birth of the War-god joins love, fire and battle
- A cloud carries a lover's message across India
- The Seasons sings the year, and how to hear it
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Shakuntala und andere Werke
by Kalidasa
A king chasing a deer meets a hermit's daughter, and a lost ring decides what he remembers.
Medium level5–10 hours to readDeutsch
Excellent
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In short
What happens when a king forgets the woman he married? In a forest hermitage, King Dushyanta chases a deer and meets Shakuntala, the foster daughter of a holy man.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Kalidasa leaves us his works, not his biography
Kalidasa probably lived in the fifth century CE, but nothing reliable survives about his life. India has guarded his poems for fifteen hundred years without guarding the facts of his days. He names himself only in the prologues of his three plays.
One legend makes him an orphan raised by an ox-driver. A scheming counsellor presents him, silent, to a learned princess, who takes his silence for wisdom and marries him. When the truth comes out, she sends him to pray to the goddess Kali, and he gains learning and poetic gift. The name means servant of Kali, though the introduction says the tale holds no historical truth.
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Cite this edition
Kālidāsa. Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/translations-of-shakuntala-and-other-works.
Kālidāsa. (2026). Translations of Shakuntala and other works. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/translations-of-shakuntala-and-other-works
Kālidāsa. Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/translations-of-shakuntala-and-other-works.
@book{kalidasa2026translations,
author = {Kālidāsa},
title = {Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/translations-of-shakuntala-and-other-works}
}
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What is Shakuntala about?
Shakuntala is a play in seven acts about King Dushyanta and Shakuntala, a hermit's foster daughter. They fall in love and marry in secret, then a sage's curse makes the king forget her until a lost ring comes to light.
What other works are in this collection?
Alongside Shakuntala, the collection presents the lighter dramas Urvashi and Malavika and Agnimitra, the epic poems The Birth of the War-god and The Dynasty of Raghu, the brief cycle The Seasons, and the poem The Cloud-Messenger.
When did Kalidasa live?
Kalidasa probably lived in the fifth century CE, though the date is uncertain and no reliable biography survives. Tradition links him to the court of King Vikramaditya in Ujjain, a city he describes lovingly in his poems.
The author
Kālidāsa
Classical Sanskrit poet and playwright
Kálidása is widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist of classical Sanskrit literature, an ancient Indian master whose lyric power set the standard for a millennium. The Birth of the War-God recounts the divine courtship of Shiva and Parvati and the coming of Kumara.
More by Kalidasa
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