The scene of what follows is laid in the Himalayan forest.  Pururavas enters, and in a long poetical soliloquy bewails his loss and seeks for traces of Urvashi.  He vainly asks help of the creatures whom he meets:  a peacock, a cuckoo, a swan, a ruddy goose, a bee, an elephant, a mountain-echo, a river, and an antelope.  At last he finds a brilliant ruby in a cleft of the rocks, and when about to throw it away, is told by a hermit to preserve it:  for this is the gem of reunion, and one who possesses it will soon be reunited with his love.  With the gem in his hand, Pururavas comes to a vine which mysteriously reminds him of Urvashi, and when he embraces it, he finds his beloved in his arms.  After she has explained to him the reason of her transformation, they determine to return to the king’s capital.

ACT V.—­The scene of the concluding act is the king’s palace.  Several years have passed in happy love, and Pururavas has only one sorrow—­that he is childless.

One day a vulture snatches from a maid’s hand the treasured gem of reunion, which he takes to be a bit of bloody meat, and flies off with it, escaping before he can be killed.  While the king and his companions lament the gem’s loss, the chamberlain enters, bringing the gem and an arrow with which the bird had been shot.  On the arrow is written a verse declaring it to be the property of Ayus, son of Pururavas and Urvashi.  A hermit-woman is then ushered in, who brings a lad with her.  She explains that the lad had been entrusted to her as soon as born by Urvashi, and that it was he who had just shot the bird and recovered the gem.  When Urvashi is summoned to explain why she had concealed her child, she reminds the king of heaven’s decree that she should return as soon as Pururavas should see the child to be born to them.  She had therefore sacrificed maternal love to conjugal affection.  Upon this, the king’s new-found joy gives way to gloom.  He determines to give up his kingdom and spend the remainder of his life as a hermit in the forest.  But the situation is saved by a messenger from Paradise, bearing heaven’s decree that Urvashi shall live with the king until his death.  A troop of nymphs then enter and assist in the solemn consecration of Ayus as crown prince.

The tale of Pururavas and Urvashi, which Kalidasa has treated dramatically, is first made known to us in the Rigveda.  It is thus one of the few tales that so caught the Hindu imagination as to survive the profound change which came over Indian thinking in the passage from Vedic to classical times.  As might be expected from its history, it is told in many widely differing forms, of which the oldest and best may be summarised thus.