Beneath the barken dress
Upon the shoulder tied,
In maiden loveliness
Her young breast seems to hide,

As when a flower amid
The leaves by autumn tossed -
Pale, withered leaves - lies hid,
And half its grace is lost.

The meanest vesture glows
On beauty that enchants:
The lotus lovelier shows
Amid dull water-plants;

The moon in added splendour
Shines for its spot of dark;
Yet more the maiden slender
Charms in her dress of bark.

She seems a flower whose fragrance none has tasted,
A gem uncut by workman's tool,
A branch no desecrating hands have wasted,
Fresh honey, beautifully cool.

No man on earth deserves to taste her beauty,
Her blameless loveliness and worth,
Unless he has fulfilled man's perfect duty -
And is there such a one on earth?

King (taking SHAKUNTALA'S hand). Ah!

When Shiva's anger burned the tree
Of love in quenchless fire,
Did heavenly fate preserve a shoot
To deck my heart's desire?

Shakuntala (feeling his touch). Hasten, my dear, hasten.

King (joyfully to himself). Now I am content. She speaks as a wife to her husband. (Aloud.) Beautiful Shakuntala, the clasp of the bracelet is not very firm. May I fasten it in another way?

Shakuntala (smiling). If you like.

King (artfully delaying before he fastens it). See, my beautiful girl!

The lotus-chain is dazzling white
As is the slender moon at night.
Perhaps it was the moon on high
That joined her horns and left the sky,
Believing that your lovely arm
Would, more than heaven, enhance her charm.

Shakuntala (touching her finger): Oh, oh! The ring is lost. (She looks sadly at GAUTAMI.)

Gautami: My child, you worshipped the holy Ganges at the spot where Indra descended. The ring must have fallen there.

King: Ready wit, ready wit!

Shakuntala: Fate is too strong for me there. I will tell you something else. King: Let me hear what you have to say.

Shakuntala: One day, in the bower of reeds, you were holding a lotus-leaf cup full of water.

King: I hear you.

Shakuntala: At that moment the fawn came up, my adopted son. Then you too pity on him and coaxed him. "Let him drink first," you said. But he did not know you, and he would not come to drink water from your hand. But he liked it afterwards, when I held the very same water. Then you smiled and said: "It is true. Every one trusts his own sort. You both belong to the forest."

King: It is just such women, selfish, sweet, false, that entice fools.

Fisherman: Well, one day I was cutting up a carp. In its maw I see this ring with the magnificent great gem. And then I was just trying to sell it here when you kind gentlemen grabbed me. That is the only way I got it. Now kill me, or find fault with me.

King: Then I put this engraved ring on her finger, and said to her --

Count every day one letter of my name;
Before you reach the end, dear,
Will come to lead you to my palace halls
A guide whom I shall send, dear.

When the mythical sage Narada came to Valmiki's hermitage, posed a question - who is an ideal man? The reply came from Narada in the form of Samkshepa Ramayana which formed the foundation on which the magnificent 24,000 verse edifice was built by Valmiki. Immersed deep into this story, Valmiki left for the river Tamasa with his disciple Bharadwaj. The pleasant and placid river reminded the seer of the mature and modest quality of his hero. He visualized a pure and pious man's mind reflected in the deep waters. In the next instant he witnessed a heartless hunter mercilessly killing a male crane bird (krauncha pakshi) that was in love with its mate. The piteous wailing (circling around the dead male) of the distressed female moved the heart of the sage so much that he spontaneously uttered a curse on the hunter. This curse came out of his mouth in the form of a 'sloka', a perfectly metrical composition, which surprised the sage himself: "No - You shall not command any respect in society for a long time as you have shot dead an innocent bird engrossed in love". The sage had turned into a poet.

His powerful emotions found equally powerful medium for their manifestation. It was a spontaneous outburst of his inner voice motivated by divine will. When he returned to his hermitage, Lord Brahma appeared before him and commanded him to compose an epic poem on the story of Ram as he had heard it from the great sage Narada, in his newly discovered metre. He also gave him the boon of the visions of all the incidents and the revelation of all the secrets connected with the story. Accordingly, Valmiki composed the epic, named it The Ramayana - the way or the conduct or the lifestory of Ram - the story of Ram's march in search of truth and righteousness.

A contemporary of the heroes of the Ramayana, Maharshi Valmiki gives very little information about himself since he was a sage who had completely dedicated his life to contemplation on God and service to humanity. History has no account of his life except that he figures briefly and modestly on two occasions in the course of the epic he wrote:

He is one of the first sages whose hermitage Ram visits along with his wife and brother on his way to Chitrakoot after leaving Ayuodhya. Valmiki welcomes them with love, affection and reverence and utters just one word 'asyatam' (be seated). He feels honored when Ram accepts his request and sits a while. The other occasion is when Ram banishes Sita, it is Valmiki that shelters her and rears up her twin sons Luv and Kush. When they recite the epic poem in his royal court, Ram invites Valmiki and requests him to bring Sita along so she can prove her chastity before the elders and sages. Valmiki is offended yet keeps his composure and says Sita would comply with Ram's wishes for he is her husband. While presenting Sita in the Mandapa (prayer hall) Valmiki utters words that highlight the penance and perseverance which Valmiki practiced his entire life.

The legendary King Vikramaditya promises a vamachari (a tantric sorcerer) that he will capture a vetala (or Baital), a celestial spirit which hangs from a tree and inhabits and animates dead bodies.

King Vikram faces many difficulties in bringing the vetala to the tantric. Each time Vikram tries to capture the vetala, it tells a story that ends with a riddle. If Vikram cannot answer the question correctly, the vampire consents to remain in captivity. If the king answers the question correctly, the vampire would escape and return to his tree. In some variations, the king is required to speak if he knows the answer, else his head will burst. In other versions, the king is unable to hold his tongue if he knows the answer, due to his ego. Regardless of the reason, he knows the answer to every question; therefore the cycle of catching and releasing the vampire continues twenty-four times.

On the twenty-fifth attempt, the vetala tells the story of a father and a son in the after-math of a devastating war. They find the queen and the princess alive in the chaos, and decide to take them home. In due time, the son marries the queen and the father marries the princess. Eventually, the son and the queen have a son, and the father and the princess have a daughter. The vetala asks what the relation between the two newborn children is. The question stumps Vikram. Satisfied, the vetala allows himself to be taken to the tantric.

The vetala reveals the tantric's plan to sacrifice Vikram, beheading him as he bowed in front of the goddess. The tantric could then gain control over the vetala. The vetala suggests that the king asks the tantric how to perform his obeisance, then take advantage of that moment to behead the sorcerer himself. Vikram does exactly as told by vetala and he is blessed by Lord Indra. The vetala offers the king a boon, whereupon Vikram requests that the tantric's life be restored and that the vetala would come to the king's aid when needed.

Picture: Vikram aur Betal - a popular TV serial starring Arun Govil as Vikram and Sajjan Kumar as the Vetala by Sagar Films (Pvt. Ltd.) (1988).

Here then we are brought face to face with a most startling fact. Writing was unknown in India before the fourth century before Christ, and yet we are asked to believe that the Vedic literature in its three well-defined periods, the Mantra, Brâhmana, and Sûtra periods, goes back to at least a thousand years before our era.

Now the Rig-Veda alone, which contains a collection of ten books of hymns addressed to various deities, consists of 1017 (1028) poems, 10,580 verses, and about 153,826 words. How were these poems composed - for they are composed in very perfect metre - and how, after having been composed, were they handed down from 1500 before Christ to 1500 after Christ, the time to which most of our best Sanskrit MSS. belong?

Entirely by memory. This may sound startling, but - what will sound still more startling, and yet is a fact that can easily be ascertained by anybody who doubts it - at the present moment, if every MS. of the Rig-Veda were lost, we should be able to recover the whole of it - from the memory of the Srotriyas in India. These native students learn the Veda by heart, and they learn it from the mouth of their Guru, never from a MS., still less from my printed edition - and after a time they teach it again to their pupils.

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To the present day India acknowledges no higher authority in matters of religion, ceremonial, customs, and law than the Veda, and so long as India is India, nothing will extinguish that ancient spirit of Vedântism which is breathed by every Hindu from his earliest youth, and pervades in various forms the prayers even of the idolater, the speculations of the philosopher, and the proverbs of the beggar.