“Depicting Artist and Viewer: Performed Aesthetics in Kālidāsa’s Śakuntalā”

This essay is an exploration of the aesthetic principles implicit in the actions of art and society depicted in Kālidāsa’s Classical Sanskrit play, The Recognition of Śakuntalā. In looking to ekphrastic depictions of art within the play, it argues that the image is an organizing principle of the understanding that must, paradoxically, be prior to both form and language.