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

This essay pays close attention to instances of ekphrasis and self-referentiality (the rich examples of art, music, and performance that are staged in the drama as such) in Kālidāsa’s Classical Sanskrit play, The Recognition of Śakuntalā.  It thus teases out the aesthetic principles implicit in the actions of art depicted in Kālidāsa’s drama. It shows how, paradoxically, "the image" is an organizing principle that is prior to both vision and language.