Menaka seduces Vishvamitra, leading to Shakuntala's birth
Indra, alarmed by the sage Vishvamitra's growing power through austerities, sends the celestial dancer Menaka to seduce him. She enters his hermitage, and a divine wind strips her bare, presenting her beauty to the sage. Overcome, Vishvamitra abandons his penance to be with her.
The god Indra looked down from heaven and saw a problem. The sage Vishvamitra was performing austerities (tapas) with such intensity that he was burning away all his sins, and the power he was generating threatened the stability of the heavens themselves. Indra could not allow this concentration of energy to continue. He summoned the apsara Menaka, the most beautiful of the celestial dancers, and gave her a command: go and break Vishvamitra’s focus. To assist her, he ordered the wind god Marut, who is always in motion, to accompany her.
Menaka went to Vishvamitra’s hermitage. She saw the sage, who had scorched away his impurities through his discipline but was still deep in meditation. Timidly, she paid her respects to the rishi and then began to play and dance before him. At that precise moment, Marut acted. The wind swept in and robbed her of her garments, which were as white as the moon. Bashful at the wind’s conduct, Menaka dropped to the ground, reaching for her clothes.
Vishvamitra saw her. He saw her nude, grasping for her garment. He saw that she was flawlessly beautiful, with no marks of age on her body. The bull among Brahmanas, who had withstood every other test, was struck with a desire he could not master. He wished to unite with her. He invited her, and Menaka, her mission clear, accepted.
The two of them then passed a long time together in the forest, making love as they wished. For them, it seemed to be but a single day. Through the sage, a daughter was born to Menaka. She named the child Shakuntala.
Menaka’s objective was accomplished. She took the newborn to the banks of the Malini river, which flowed through a lovely plain in the Himalayas. There, on the riverbank, she left the infant and departed. Her duty to Indra was complete. She quickly returned to Shakra’s assembly in heaven.
The daughter lay alone in a deserted forest frequented by lions and tigers. Seeing the helpless child, vultures descended. But they did not attack. They surrounded her from all sides, their wings forming a protective circle. The birds guarded Menaka’s child until the sage Kanva came to the river to perform his ablutions. He found the infant in the deep and lonely wood, surrounded by birds. He took her home, raised her as his own daughter, and because she had been found in the solitude of the forest, protected by birds (shakunta), he named her Shakuntala.