ring as a pledge of his troth.

Absorbed in thoughts of her absent lover, Sakuntala once failed to
notice the approach of a sage, who cursed her, saying she should be
forgotten by the man she loved, but who relenting after a while
declared this curse would be annulled when her husband beheld his
ring.

Some time after this, on the way to rejoin her spouse to inform him
she was about to become a mother, Sakuntala, while bathing in a sacred
pool, accidentally dropped this ring. On appearing without it before
Dushyanta, he sternly denied all acquaintance with her and ordered her
driven out into the jungle, where she soon gave birth to their son
Bharata.

The lad was about six years old when a fisherman found in the stomach
of a fish the lost ring, which he carried to the rajah. On beholding
this token, Dushyanta, remembering all, hastened to seek poor
Sakuntala, whom he discovered in the jungle, watching her boy
fearlessly play with lion cubs. Proud of such a son, the rajah bore
his family home; and Bharata, after having a long reign, gave birth to
Hastin, founder of Hastinapur, a city on the bank of the Ganges about
sixty miles from the modern Delhi.

A grandson of this Hastin married the Goddess of the Ganges,--who was
doing penance on earth,--and their children were animated by the souls
of deities condemned for a time to assume human form. In order to
enable these fellow-gods to return to heaven as soon as possible,
Ganga undertook to drown each of her babies soon after birth, provided
the gods would pledge themselves to endow one of her descendants with
their strength, and would allow him to live, if not to perpetuate his
species.

After seeing seven of his children cast into the water without daring
to object, the rajah, although he knew his goddess-wife would leave
him if he found fault with anything she did, protested so vehemently
against the similar disposal of his eighth son that his wife
disappeared with the child. But a few years later this son, Bhishma,
the terrible, having grown up, was restored to his father.

To comfort himself for the loss of his first wife, the king now
married the beautiful daughter of a fisherman, solemnly promising her
son should succeed him, for Bhishma voluntarily relinquished all right
to the throne and took a vow to remain celibate. The new wife's main
attraction seems to have been a sweet odor, bestowed by a saint, who
restored her virginity after she had borne him a son