VASANTASENA

 

VASANTASENA

          Vasantasena, the heroine of the play Mrucchakatikam of the king Sudraka, is a professional courtesan born and bred as such; but she is as pure-minded as any lady of noble station.  She falls in love with Chaarudhattha (the hero of the play) the very first time she sees him at a festival in Cupid’s shrine, and from that time, she cannot tolerate the very idea of entertaining any other suitor; it is needless to remark that upon such as Sakara she looks with loathing and contempt.

          She is generous hearted, as is shown by her readily paying off the debt of Samvahaka, and releasing Madanika from her bondage with equal alacrity.  Her passion for Chaarudhattha grown so intense in the end that she goes to visit him as an abhisaarika, inspite of a raging thunderstorm; when in his house she gives a further proof of her generous nature by handing over her own ornaments to her lover’s son for making a golden toy-cart.

          When, finally, Sakara persecutes her with his attentions, she is ready even to accept death at his hands rather than prove faithless to one that was enshrined in her heart; and, to all appearances, she dies with his name on her lips.   She thus gives the greatest possible proof that lay in her power of the death of her affection and the loyalty of her love, for which she receives recognition later at the hands of king Aryaka, who bestows upon her title of a Vadhoo.

          The development of Vasanthasena’s passion has been delineated by the poet with touches of such tenderness as raise her character to a very high degree in our eyes; compare, for instance, her behaviour when Rohasena - the innocent-minded son of Chaarudhattha, declines to consider her as his mother because she happened to be wearing ornaments.  In fact, the more one sees of Vasanthasena the more on thinks of her as a Kulasthree and the less as a Ganikaa, so far removed she is from the ways that one naturally associates with the latter.

          And if we find the nature of Vasanthasena not rising to the high or sublime level of Sita or Sakuntala that is because the situation and environment are different.       

 

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