Augustus William von Schlegel, in his first Lecture on Dramatic Literature, says:  ’Among the Indians, the people from whom perhaps all the cultivation of the human race has been derived, plays were known long before they could have experienced any foreign influence.  It has lately been made known in Europe that they have a rich dramatic literature, which ascends back for more than two thousand years.  The only specimen of their plays (Nataks) hitherto known to us is the delightful [S’]akoontala, which, notwithstanding the colouring of a foreign clime, bears in its general structure a striking resemblance to our romantic drama.’

Alexander von Humboldt, in treating of Indian poetry, observes:  ’Kalidasa, the celebrated author of the [S’]akoontala, is a masterly describer of the influence which Nature exercises upon the minds of lovers.  This great poet flourished at the splendid court of Vikramaditya, and was, therefore, cotemporary with Virgil and Horace.  Tenderness in the expression of feeling, and richness of creative fancy, have assigned to him his lofty place among the poets of all nations’.

These considerations induced me, in 1853, to compile and publish an edition of the text of the ‘[S’]akoontala’ from various original MSS., with English translations of the metrical passages, and explanatory notes.  A second edition of this work has since been published by the Delegates of the Oxford University Press.  To the notes of that edition I must refer all students of Sanskrit literature who desire a close and literal translation of the present drama, and in the Preface will be found an account of various other editions and translations.

The following pages contain a free translation, and the first English version in prose and metre, of the purest recension of the most celebrated drama of the Shakespeare of India.

The need felt by the British public for some such translation as I have here offered can scarcely be questioned.  A great people, who, through their empire in India, command the destinies of the Eastern world, ought surely to be conversant with the most popular of Indian dramas, in which the customs of the Hindus, their opinions, prejudices, and fables, their religious rites, daily occupations and amusements, are reflected as in a mirror.  Nor is the prose translation of Sir W. Jones (excellent though it be) adapted to meet the requirements of modern times.  That translation was unfortunately made from corrupt manuscripts (the best that could then be procured), in which the bold phraseology of Kalidasa has been occasionally weakened, his delicate expressions of refined love clothed in an unbecoming dress, and his ideas, grand in their simplicity, diluted by repetition or amplification.  It is, moreover, altogether unfurnished with explanatory annotations.  The present translation, on the contrary, while representing the purest version of the drama, has abundant notes, sufficient to answer the exigencies of the non-oriental scholar.