The Recognition of Sakuntala is a play and love story written in Sankskrit by the poet Kalidasa and is commonly referred to as Sakuntala. It is set in the countryside of India and plays a large role in Indian culture, much like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet does in Western culture. Though both plays are love stories, Sakuntala combines the love story with the cultural and religious practices from India at the time. The play Sakuntala is about the difficulty Sakuntala and King Dusyanta go through to be together. My focus will be on how socioeconomics plays a role throughout Sakuntala. Socioeconomics[1] is defined to be: of, relating to, or involving a combination of social and economic factors. When Sakuntala and King Dusyanta first meet there is an obvious difference between their castes, which includes their wealth, power and social mobility. India’s society was structured using a caste system. In this system, people could only marry within their caste and had little to no social mobility as a result. In this case, King Dusyanta is royalty and able to marry who he wishes, if they are in a caste that permits them to. Sakuntala belongs to a lower caste with the ascetics, who focus on living a spiritual life, living with her father, a royal sage.

Sakuntala is a young woman living in an ascetic hermitage when she is discovered by King Dusyanta. The King was hunting a deer when he was informed the deer belonged to the hermitage. In order to perform his duties as a King and pay his respects to the ascetics he enters the hermitage. He immediately falls in love with Sakuntala after spotting her and watching her from the shadows of the surrounding trees. Once he reveals himself, Sakuntala is shown to be feeling love for the King as well but tries to keep it contained within herself as a secret love and desire. Sakuntala is a hermitage girl and the King is royalty and that is the first hurdle they have to overcome on their road to happiness. She tells him “I too may be consumed by love, but I’m not free to give myself to you” (46). She is not from his caste and cannot marry him. More importantly, Sakuntala needs her father’s approval and permission to get married. When they found each other, her father was away on a trip and could not give her permission to marry King Dusyanta. After talking to Sakuntala’s friends, King Dusyanta discovers that she is the daughter of a Nymph and which changes her social standing and her place in her caste because she is the daughter of a goddess.

Their marriage is a Gandharva marriage, which required no rituals, witnesses or participation from family members. Their marriage happens hidden in the tress and land around Sakuntala’s hermitage. Sakuntala is unable to consent to marriage without her father’s approval but King Dusyanta tells her that this type of marriage happens often and she would not be breaking the law or going against her father’s wishes. He tells her “You wouldn’t be the first royal sage’s daughter to take a prince for love- and receive her father’s blessings later” (40). This not only allows Sakuntala to be with her love, it also changes her social standing. She goes from being a humble, religious girl working in a hermitage to the wife of King Dusyanta, making her a queen. This is a big change for her because she is now in an upper caste, has much more wealth and power over her friends and family, as well as the people of India.

Sakuntala’s marriage changes everything about her life. She is now going to move into the Royal Palace with her husband King Dusyanta. It also means that she has to leave her life in the hermitage, her friends and family and embark on a new trip with a new life and society she has never known. The King remains in a higher caste until Sakuntala can accept her place at his side in the castle. She mistakenly offends a god on her journey and has a curse placed upon her. Her husband will not remember her unless she gives a token he has given her. In this case it is the ring he gave her when they got married. Unable to find the ring when she arrives at the palace, she is publicly shamed because the curse does not allow King Dusyanta to remember her or their marriage. After hearing her explain that they got married and that is why she came, he cannot recall this and is afraid of being taken advantage of or worse, being with the wife of another man. He says “It is just such women, selfish, sweet, false, that entice fools.” He cannot risk his standing as a King and member of the royal caste with the scandal of getting a hermitage girl pregnant or being with the wife of another man so he rejects Sakuntala. This rejection is not just of love but of the royal caste and a better life.

As a result of the King Dusyanta’s rejection, Sakuntala ends up being taken to a celestial hermitage. This is a higher caste than she grew up in but was not as high as the royal caste. She eventually goes deep into the forest with her son Bharata where they live for many years. Sakuntala loses her social standing as well as her economic standing when she is rejected. She is alone in the forest with her son and has essentially been made an outcast in every way possible. When the king happens to be given the ring he married Sakuntala with, his memory returns and he rushes to find her. She has almost forgotten King Dusyanta after her years alone in the forest with her son and initially rejects him. He says “My dear, that cruelty I practised on you has come full circle, since now it is I who need to  be recognized by you.” (99) After a moment, she recognizes him and accepts him once more as her husband, and in this moment returns to being the queen and of a higher caste. She is now free to be with her love, have a family and properly integrate into the lifestyle and benefits that come with being in the royal caste. She now has a family, money and power that was inaccessible to her when she was rejected by the king.

l[1] “Socioeconomic.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 04 May 2017.