responsible for the wrong he does to Shakuntalā nor can we give him any credit for the ultimate justice he is supposed to have done to her. From this point of view the original story as found in the Puranas seems to be more realistic than that of Kalidas but then it makes it difficult to explain what on earth made Dushyanta do, so foul an act, in the case of so fair a creature as Shakuntalā. As distinguished from this it is found that there is no commitment on the part of Urvashi which could have thrown her into self-forgetting reverie of Shakuntalā, except her geniune love and real spirit of sacrifice on her part. It can neither be said to be the artifice of poet in using malediction as a measure of bringing about separation; for this, malediction differs materially from the one in Shâkuntal; for in the former it brings about union and is a blessing in disguise rather than the separation as in the latter, where it is only a miserable apology for the levity of the hero's character and a device for bringing about separation according to the maxim,
"न विना विप्रलम्भेन सम्भोगः पुष्टिमश्नुते ।
कषायिते हि वस्त्रादौ भूयात्रागो विवर्धते ॥".
For seeking this end in the play in hand, Kalidas had another curse in his satchel thrown in IV Act where she subjects herself to a transformation into a creeper. That Urvashi who once tasted the immortal nectar and ambrosia of the heavens brought herself to limited pleasurses of this world with all her matured understanding and then remained with unflinching devotion to the hero is something which is a superior character in this heroine to the one in either an innocent girl of Mălavikā or an artless soul like Shakuntalā. She still goes a step further in her attempt to move first from the heaven for him before the curse, which makes her Abhisarika as well. To be Abhisarika cannot be a flaw in a heroine only because she stole herself with an opportunity to meet her lover. For if so, nothing short is done by Shakuntalā who cannot be technically called an Abhisarika, being a married consort approaching her disacknowledging husband, who rejects her, as a paragon of virtue seated in the throne of Justice, giving another specimen in his own conduct to verify the truth of his dogma of the infallibility of a righteous heart, viz. “सतां हि सन्देहपदेषु वस्तुषु प्रमाणमन्तकरणप्रवृत्तयः"- which is his personal measure in accepting and rejecting the girl at his own free will. Then again . Urvashi
