The poem is, besides, a general repository of the mythological, legendary, and philosophical lore of the Hindus, and reached its present state of development only by degrees and at the end of several centuries.
Bharata, the real founder of the principal Indian dynasty, is so famous a character, that the Hindus often designate their whole country as "the land of Bharata." We are told that Rajah Dushyanta, a descendant of the Moon, while hunting one day beheld the beautiful Sakuntala, daughter of a sage, whom he persuaded to consent to a clandestine marriage.

But, after a short time, the bridegroom departed, leaving his bride a 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.