Mahabharata is the great Indian epic, ten times the length of Iliad and Odyssey combined and roughly four times the length of Ramayana. When we talk of Mahabharata, we immediately start discussing the Pandavas, the Kauravas, the Kurukshetra War that ensued between them, Dharma or duties that are mentioned in the epic and much more.
But what we fail to discuss are the lives of the women in Mahabharata, who even though kept in the background by the mighty gods and men in the epic, are in reality the catalysts which led to the Kurukshetra War. The women in Mahabharata have played a crucial role in the mechanism of the entire 10,000 shlokas long poem.
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Satyavati – The Origin of Mahabharata
Satyavati can be called as the origin of the legendary epic, since her few steps led to the great war for the throne of Hastinapur. Satyavati was the daughter of the chieftain of the fishermen. Once, while she was ferrying Sage Parasara across the river, he fell in love with her. She bore him a son Vyasa, who is also the author of Mahabharata. Vyasa, too, like his father became an ascetic and retired to the forest.
Years later, when King Shantanu of Hastinapur too fell in love with her, he went to Satyavati’s father to ask her hand for marriage. Satyavati bore Shantanu two sons who died rather early and her younger son left two childless widows – Ambika and Ambalika. Satyavati then called Vyasa and requested him to father the children of Ambika and Ambalika as no king meant chaos in the kingdom. Vyasa fathered two children – Ambika’s son Dhritrashtra who was born blind and Ambalika’s son Pandu who was born pale and unhealthy. As time passed, Satyavati sensed the animosity between the sons of Pandu and the sons of Dhritarashtra, and she foresaw a struggle for power with tragic consequences. She voluntarily retired to the forest.
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Gandhari – The Woeful Mother
Gandhari was the wife of King Dhritarashtra and the mother of Kauravas. She was the daughter of King Subala. Subala was aware of Dhritarashtra’s blindness but he agreed for the marriage since his alliance with the Kuru lineage would be in his interest. Gandhari accepted his father’s decision. To comfort her husband and truly be his companion, she put a veil over both her eyes to experience blindness.
Gandhari was blessed by Lord Shiva of being the mother of a hundred sons. Jealous by her sister-in-law Kunti who already had two sons, she too conceived, but strangely her pregnancy continued for two years. In due time, Gandhari became a mother to a hundred sons and one daughter.
Gandhari was a doting mother. But she also noticed the arrogant and stubborn behaviour of her eldest son, Duryodhana. She tried to bring this matter to her husband’s notice at several occasions, but to no avail. At the eve of the great war, when Duryodhana came to seek her blessings, she said “Let the righteous be victorious.” After the war ended, Gandhari sorely lamented over the death of her sons. She retired with her husband and her sister-in-law Kunti to the forest where they perished in a huge forest fire.
What can be clearly seen here is the patriarchal oppression she went through throughout her life. She was wedded to a blind man for his father’s benefit. Gandhari’s position in her family was always underappreciated and overlooked. Her excess love for her sons led to their downfall in the war. Her character shows the low status of women in historical times.
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Kunti – The Matriarch of the Pandavas
Kunti was the wife of Emperor Pandu and mother of the Pandavas. Kunti’s character has been thoroughly debated and discussed by many historians and authors alike. It begins with the secrecy regarding her first son, Karna. She hid the birth of Karna as he was born out of wedlock. She has three other sons Yudhishthira, Bheema and Arjuna and takes in her two step sons Nakula and Sahdeva after Pandu’s other wife, Madri dies with him. Kunti becomes the matriarch of the Pandava lineage. This puts her at a really strong position in the history of womenfolk. Did she use her position wisely? That’s a debatable issue, especially when one takes into consideration the fact that she disclosed the secret to Karna on the eve of the war to make him fight in favour of Pandavas, or the fact that she let Draupadi stay a wife to all his five sons.
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Draupadi – The Doom of Kauravas
Draupadi was the daughter of King Drupada, ruler of Panchala. Draupadi is the most notable among the women in the Mahabharata, and has a stellar role in the second half of the epic. The episode of The Dicing puts the spotlight on her and makes her the catalyst of Kauravas’ doom. She raises many pertinent questions, one of which questioned the authority of a husband (who has already betted himself and lost) treating his wife as his possession. This is a clear indication that free thinking was very much present since the olden times and feminism is not a new concept at all, rather it is a movement that started way back when we didn’t have a terminology for it.
Draupadi is a fierce character compared to the motherly Gandhari and Kunti. She is indeed a woman of substance. Her strong demeanor in the times when patriarchy was in full force goes on to show that Mahabharata was, in many ways, a very rationale book. Even when Ashwatthaman kills all of her children, she spares his life as he too was someone’s son.
Mahabharata is a heroic epic which talks about dharma, of justice, of the triumph of good over evil, of duties of men to lead a proper life. But it is also about the women who have depicted the varying degrees of women oppression and women empowerment in their own way.