DUSHYANTA

Dushyanta
India

Dushyanta was an important king in Indian mythological traditions, but his story cannot be told without first recounting the origins of his bride, Shakantula. A great king named Kaushika was trying to achieve a form of spiritual transcendence by giving up his worldly life, but Indra (king of the gods, in Hinduism) was threatened by his quest and sent a beautiful woman named Menaka to distract him from his goal. Indra’s plan worked and the two soon had a daughter named Shakantula, but they unfortunately abandoned her as an infant. The young girl was adopted by a wise old sage named Kanva and raised in his humble shack in the woods.One day, when the girl had become much older, the king Dushyanta was hunting in the woods and came upon her abode. Dushyanta quickly fell in love with the young woman and asked her to marry him. Unfortunately, her adopted father was not at home and she wanted his blessing for the wedding. The king managed to convince her to go ahead with the marriage by telling her that they could use the trees as witnesses to the union. After the wedding, the king claimed that he would not feel right taking her without first talking to her father, so he left her (although he stuck around long enough to get her pregnant). The king never returned, and eventually the family gave up on him ever making good on his word. They named the boy Bharata and went on with their lives.But as the boy grew, he began asking about his father, and Shakantula finally ventured out of the forest to find the king. When she found and confronted Dushyanta, though, he pretended not to know her. When she told him that their witnesses had been the trees, he and his court scorned her words. As she was about to leave angrily, the sky tore open and the voice of one of the gods told Dushyanta to take responsibility for his son and the wife he had married. Not wanting to anger a divine power, the king finally accepted Shakantula and Bharata as his own.