Sanskrit and Play

Kalidasa's Sakuntala is the best-known Sanskrit drama, and widely considered a masterpiece. It is based on an episode from the Mahabharata (book 1, ch. 62-69), though Kalidasa takes significant liberties in his version. Widely translated -- there were "no fewer than forty-six translations in twelve different languages" in the century after Sir William Jones' groundbreaking first translation (1789) alone, Dorothy Matilda Figueira notes in Translating the Orient -- new editions continue to appear regularly. Barbara Stoler Miller's, published along with translations of Kalidasa's two other dramas (and three explanatory essays) as Theater of Memory, appears to have become a standard version, and certainly the classroom text of choice (at least in the US); it also has the advantage of being relatively easy to find (which is not the case with most of the other translations). The eighty pages of essays, covering three different aspects of Kalidasa and Sanskrit drama, and the solid critical apparatus (though the actual notes are a bit thin), as well the fact that it makes the other two Kalidasa plays easily available, does make this an appealing edition. It is not, however, ideal. Miller's translation is solid, with a few inspired touches, but it does not stand out among the competition. In addition, more supporting material, and more extensive notes focussed specifically on the play would have been welcome.

Sakuntala is a play in seven acts. It begins with a remarkable Prologue, in which the director of the play briefly discusses the planned night's entertainment with the lead actress. He's worried about impressing his learned audience, and tells her:

I find no performance perfect until the critics are pleased; the better trained we are the more we doubt ourselves. ("Critics" -- with it's newspaper-reviewer connotations -- is an unfortunate choice here; Kalidasa clearly only means he's worried about the opinion of this generally