Duhshanta Departs After the Union, Worrying About Kashyapa
After accepting Shakuntala's hand and promising to send a royal escort for her, King Duhshanta leaves the hermitage. But as he rides away, a new worry takes hold: how will the powerful sage Kanva react when he learns of the secret union?
The pact was made. Duhshanta accepted Shakuntala's hand according to the gandharva rites, and she accepted him. Before leaving, he reassured her.
"O one with a sweet smile! It shall be that way. I will even take you to my capital. I promise you truthfully." He reiterated his promise, repeatedly assuring her, "I will send a fourfold army to escort you. I will take you to my palace with that."
Having given his word, the king turned and went away.
But as he rode toward his capital, his mind began to turn on a single point: Kashyapa's son. The sage Kanva, Shakuntala's adoptive father, was not just a hermit. He was an illustrious one, possessed of ascetic powers that could bend the world. He had been away gathering fruits when Duhshanta arrived, and the entire union had happened without his knowledge or sanction.
"What will the illustrious one, with all his ascetic powers, do when he hears?"
The question circled in Duhshanta's thoughts. He had acted within dharma, citing the sanctioned forms of marriage for a Kshatriya. He had made a binding promise for the succession. Yet the absence of the father's blessing — and the fact that it had all been done in secret — now felt like a weight. The king entered his capital, his mind anxious about potential consequences, leaving Shakuntala behind at the hermitage to wait for an escort that, in his worry, he had already promised to send.