King Rajendra Varman and Queen Mrinalini are reigning the Vyjayanti empire. Mahendra Varman is the rival and the neighbouring king. Kannika is the minister’s daughter, who is in love with King Rajendra Varman and aims to attain him at any cost. This convoluted tale of palace intrigue, suspicion, unreciprocated love, seduction, villainy and piety was interspersed with excellent music.

The film is based on a story set in the Chola Empire in year 1083 AD. The titular character in the story is Ambikapathy (M K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar), the son of the Tamil poet Kambar (Serugulathur Sama) who is in love with the Chola princess and daughter of Kulothunga Chola, Amaravati (played by M. R. Santhanalakshmi). The king objects to their love and insists on testing Ambikapathy's literary mettle before judging his worth. The test given to Ambikapathi is that he should write and sing a hundred poems in the field of Puram (dealing with war and politics). The poems should not have any reference to the field of Aram (dealing of love and romance). Ambikapathi begins the test in the King's court with a Kadavul Vaazhthu (invocation to God). Amaravathi who is keeping the count, mistakes the invocation as a poem and counts it as poem number one.

Vijayakumar and Sukumar (K. P. Kesavan) are brothers. Sukumar, the younger brother is an actor and goes to Madras to earn a living. There he gets a break and becomes famous. The money he sends for his family's upkeep is stolen by Vijayakumar and his wife. Because of their greed, the joint family gets split. After some time, the wayward brother and sister in law have a change of heart and repent for their actions. The family is once again reunited.

A Princess is tricked into marrying a naive and illiterate youth.

Sakuntalai is the story of the mythological queen Shakuntala, whose tale is told in the Mahabharata and dramatised by Kalidasa in the play Abhijñānaśākuntalam.