Which Character in the Mahabharata was the Most Chivalrous?

Which Character in the Mahabharata was the Most Chivalrous?

Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 29 May, 2014

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar.  All Rights Reserved.

For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

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This question was asked on quora about a year ago, and I am reproducing here the answer I gave there for the benefit of my readers who do not have access to quora. Here is the answer in its context in quora.

My answer follows.

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The most chivalrous person in the Mahabharata was undoubtedly Bhishma.  

If by chivalry we mean nobility of character, the ability to keep your word under all circumstances, devotion to duty, and fairness in war, Bhishma towers above anyone else in this regard.

Before I talk about Bhishma, I'd like to dispose of other contenders that may be spoken about, so that my reasons for picking Bhishma will be clear.

Arjuna:

Arjuna is often spoken about as a very chivalrous warrior.  His speech to Uttara before they meet the army of the Kauravas and defeat them bespeaks his nature as one who despises none, for which he has earned the name Bibhatsu.  (Bibhatsa is the term in Sanskrit for the emotion of disgust, and the Bibhatsu means one who shows disgust towards no one.)  Arjuna, instead of despising Uttara for his cowardice, seeks to embolden him to raise himself and show the courage that is expected of him.  There are many other incidents in his life which show his chivalrous nature.  Yet there are three incidents in the war which show him to be less than chivalrous.  Although he does these unchivalrous acts at the bidding of Krishna, that doesn't excuse the fact that they are unchivalrous.

The first is the killing of Bhishma.  Knowing fully well that Bhishma would not fight a woman, Arjuna fights behind Shikhandi and kills Bhishma.  The second is the slaying of Bhurishravas, who was fighting Satyaki.  Satyaki was prostate and defeated, and Bhurishravas was about to kill him.  Arjuna shot an arrow that cut off the hand of Bhurishravas who was about to kill Satyaki.  By attacking an opponent who wasn't even facing him, Arjuna committed an unchivalrous act.  The third, of course, is the killing of Karna.  By killing Karna, who was not fighting him, who had laid down his bow and arrows and was trying to extricate the wheel of his chariot from the ground, Arjuna again was unchivalrous.  In my mind, these three acts make Arjuna ineligible.

Karna and Drona:

To try to burn your enemies in a lac palace or cheat them at a game of dice would automatically disqualify someone who hopes to be labeled chivalrous, but in addition, Karna also has behaved unchivalrously on the battlefield.  He helped kill Abhimanyu, along with 5 other great warriors of the Kauravas, when Abhimanyu was fighting them singlehanded after being trapped in the Chakravyuha.  On Drona's advice, Karna shoots arrows to cut off the reins of the horses using which Abhimanyu was steering his chariot - and that too from behind.  This act disqualifies both Karna and Drona.

Karna is a mixed bag, however, since he did give up his greatest protection, his armour, in order to adhere to his vow that he would refuse no gift to anyone after his prayers.  He also spared the life of his brothers Yudhisthira, Bhima, and Nakula on the battlefield in order to keep his promise to his mother Kunti that he would only kill Arjuna or die by Arjuna's hand.

Drona has one more strike against him - the treatment of Ekalavya, the Nishada prince who learned archery on his own, using only a clay image of Drona as an inspiration, and became a better archer than even Arjuna.  Because of caste bias and because of his favoritism towards Arjuna, Drona commits the very ignoble act of asking Ekalavya for his thumb as guru dakshina, knowing fully well that having given that, Ekalavya could never again hope to be as good an archer.

Duryodhana:

Although Duryodhana behaved egregiously almost his whole life, scheming against the Pandavas - incidents like the palace of lac, trying to poison Bhima, cheating at the game of dice, etc. - for the entire duration of the war he behaved chivalrously - with the exception of the death of Abhimanyu.  He died a warrior's death, and his death was achieved unchivalrously by Bhima striking him below the navel, which was a violation of the rules of war.

Krishna:

I don't think I need to say much about why Krishna doesn't deserve this title - most everything he achieved in the Mahabharata war was done by behaving without chivalry - these include the deaths of Bhishma, Drona (killed because of a lie about the death of his son), Karna, Duryodhana, and Jayadratha (darkening the sky and making people believe the sun had set when it really hadn't).  Krishna, of course, justifies everything by saying that the ends (the defeat of the Kauravas) justify the means (trickery).  Be that as it may, what he did certainly wasn't chivalrous.

Yudhishthira:

Yudhishthira is often regarded as a noble person.  Indeed, often in the epic he is considered to be the epitome of dharma.  Even people like Bhishma defer to his understanding of Dharma.  But Yudhishthira has three fatal strikes against him.  The first one, which is the only one Vyasa seems to consider, is the fact that he lied on the battlefield about Ashwatthama.  The Pandavas, on Krishna's urging, decide that they will tell Drona the lie that his son Ashwatthama is dead.  Drona does not believe it and, to verify it, comes to Yudhishthira to ask if the news is true - for he is very sure that Yudhishthira would never tell a lie, not for the kingship of the three worlds. 

Yudhishthira proves him wrong - and goes along with the lie, with the consequence that Drona lays down his weapons and goes into yoga, upon which Dhrishtadyumna cuts his head off.  It is for this sin that Yudhishthira spends a sixteenth day of his life in hell.

But in my opinion, Yudhishthira had two other strikes against him.  One was his excessive fondness for dice.  In the final ascent to heaven that the five brothers and Draupadi attempt, Bhima asks Yudhishthira what his crime was that he was falling down from the mountain.  Yudhishthira replies that he was overly attached to food and was a glutton. If this is the standard, surely addiction to gambling should be a higher crime?  In addition, Yudhishthira abandoned his wife, enough in my mind and for my understanding of chivalry to be considered ineligible.  For more on this, see Can you Compare Today’s Rape Victims to Draupadi?

So now, having disposed of his rivals, I come to Bhishma.

A man who would keep his word at any cost; a prince who gave up kingship for the sake of his father's happiness; a young man who gave up married life simply so his father could marry the girl he had set his heart on; who served his king and kingdom like a loyal and faithful knight until his death; and who, even when his life depended on it, refused to break his oath never to fight a woman and hence ultimately gave up his life in the cause of dharma - Bhishma is my vote for the most chivalrous person in the Mahabharata.

Why Krishna Sided With The Pandavas - A Practical Answer

Why Krishna Sided With The Pandavas – A Practical Answer

Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 29 May, 2014

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar.  All Rights Reserved.

For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

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I was asked to answer a question on quora on the Mahabharata, an epic I love for its complexity, for its nuanced expositions of right and wrong, and the way it can make you think about ethics.

One of the most amazing things in the Mahabharata is that nothing is black-and-white – everything has shades of grey, whether that pertains to the character of individual heroes or even the behaviour of Gods.

In this regard, I was recently asked to answer a question on the social media website quora, of which I am an active member, and where I have answered many questions related to the Mahabharata. I posted the link to my answer on facebook, but then realized that there are some who may not wish to join quora but may want to read my post. Since this particular response was quite detailed, I decided to make a blog post of it.

First, you can read the answer in its context in quora here.

Below I reproduce this answer for the benefit of my readers who do not wish to join quora just to read my response.

The Question, asked by Akshaye Badiger (Copied Verbatim)

What was the sole motive of Krishna behind the Kurukshetra war?

Obviously he cannot be a reason of death of lakhs of people just for the sake of the death of 100 kauravas, were they so evil?

I mean to say what were the actual sins of Duryodhan and his 99 brothers?

Lets keeping their sins w.r.t. to the pandavas and Drauapdi aside.

Lord Krishna can never give such horrible deaths to people like Drona, Karna, Abhimanyu, Bheeshma etc just for the sake of these 100 evil souls.

What was the real motive of his plot of Kurukshetra war? Were kauravas so evil?

What exactly did he accomplish from this war that without any worries he left this earth 36 years from then?

What was his real motive?

What happened after the kurukshetra war for which the Lord himself had Incarnated?

My Answer (Again Quoted Verbatim from Quora)

Thanks for asking me to answer this question; however, I am not sure if you will like the answer I am going to give you. 

Unlike the other answers you have received from those whom you have asked to answer, I am giving you a practical answer, based on what is there in the epic, not a religious answer.

If you study the Mahabharata carefully, you will realize that it is not as black and white as it is often represented to us as children.

We are taught that the Pandavas were good and the Kauravas were bad; Krishna was on the side of the good; and so the Kauravas were defeated.

The fact of the matter is that the “evil” of the Kauravas is certainly not a definite conclusion you can come to if you read the epic in detail.

Let me explain.

The “Evil” Duryodhana?

First of all, any “evil” that Duryodhana and his brothers did was only confined to the Pandavas and their common wife Draupadi. For example, when the Pandavas were in exile in the forest, Duryodhana ruled as effective king, even though his father was nominally the king. There is no mention in the Mahabharata that Duryodhana was a bad king – that, as another person suggested, there was a rise in crime, murders and rapes, etc. Duryodhana’s quarrel was not with the people of his land. Duryodhana was apparently a king who cared for his subjects. He was generous, performed sacrifices and gave gifts to his subjects, and so on. His quarrel was only with the Pandavas, and that is because there was a genuine disagreement about who should inherit the kingdom. Yes, Duryodhana did a lot of bad things – TO THE PANDAVAS – but his justification (which he once presents to Dhritarashtra) is that all is fair in war, and that whatever is effective in the destruction of a powerful enemy is acceptable – in the words even of the guru of the Devas, Brihaspati.

The answer to that question – who had the legal right to inherit the kingdom of Hastinapura - is by no means obvious.

Who Should Have Inherited Hastinapura?

First of all, realize that the actual Kuru dynasty ends with Bhishma on blood lines. Vichitravirya and Chitrangada, Santanu’s sons by Satyavati, both die childless, and so Vichitravirya’s widows are impregnated by Vyasa, Satyavati’s son by her premarital sexual union with the sage Parasara. The Mahabharata is therefore essentially the story of Vyasa’s biological children and their offspring. Both Dhritarashtra and Pandu are Vyasa’s sons, speaking biologically; from the prevalent custom, they are legally Vichitravirya’s sons. Next, Pandu, the younger brother, due to a curse, cannot father children; but he begets children from the Devas on his wife because of a boon Kunti had received. Dhritarashtra’s sons, on the other hand, ARE his own biological sons.

Dhritarashtra cannot inherit the kingdom because he is blind; Pandu abdicates because of his curse; and so then, Dhritarashtra DOES become the king, not simply a regent. He is actually the king at this point. 

Pandu’s “legal” son Yudhisthira, the biological offspring of Yama and Kunti, is born before Dhritarashtra’s biological son Duryodhana. Duryodhana is thus the biological son of the actual king at the time. One could make a fair argument (and Duryodhana and his supporters do argue this) that, being the son of the king, Duryodhana should inherit the kingdom. 

Yudhisthira is born earlier than Duryodhana, but he is the son of the younger brother Pandu who, in addition, is no longer king at this time.

So who should be king? Bhishma and Vidura convince Dhritarashtra that it is Yudhisthira who ought to be king, but Duryodhana feels his birthright is being taken away from him. 

Finally, a compromise solution is arrived at, whereby the Pandavas are given the Khandava forest to rule over after splitting the kingdom. One could ask reasonably why this was unsatisfactory to Duryodhana, but if you see things from his viewpoint, there is no need to be happy about giving up half of what you think was yours. From Duryodhana’s viewpoint, the Pandavas had no business getting ANY share of the kingdom, and that stands as a pretty good argument on its own.

So I will argue that history is written by the victors, and that “evil” lies in the eyes of the beholder. Of course, Duryodhana was guilty of personally hurting the Pandavas on many occasions – poisoning Bhima, trying to burn them alive in the lac palace, and so on. Not to forget insulting their wife in the game of dice. But these he felt justified in doing in keeping with Brihaspati’s principle that all is fair in war.

Keep in mind also that Duryodhana’s cheating with Sakuni’s help in the game of dice is never proved. In fact, the Pandavas never once accuse Sakuni of cheating. When Draupadi is dragged by the hair by Dussasana and asks for justice from the assembly, including Bhishma, it is Bhishma who says that it is hard for him to judge, especially because Yudhisthira has not contended that Sakuni has cheated, and that Draupadi seems to have been fairly won. He even leaves the question of whether Draupadi was fairly won by the Kauravas for Yudhisthira to decide, given that Yudhisthira is Dharmaraja – the Just King – and Yudhisthira is silent, indicating that indeed, Draupadi was won fairly.

Now I will come to Krishna.

Krishna’s Motivations

Why does Krishna take sides with the Pandavas?

Because Krishna had an existential problem with Jarasandha, the powerful king of Magadha, who could be defeated by no one but Bhima. Jarasandha was responsible for Krishna and his people having to flee Mathura (which is why Krishna has the appellation Rann-chhod – one who fled the battlefield) and run away to Dwaraka.

When convincing Yudhishthira to send Bhima to kill Jarasandha, Krishna mentions that this is the only way to kill him, because killing him in battle, with weapons, would be impossible for the Devas and Asuras put together, and the only person in the world who is strong enough to kill him is Bhima.

Krishna is, of course, related to the Pandavas through Kunti, who is his aunt, but in politics relationships are never very important. He recognizes that partnership with the Pandavas would strengthen his position and eventually rid him of his enemy Jarasandha – and in return he supports the Pandavas’ claim to the kingdom of Hastinapura.

His gamble succeeds, of course, when he goads a rather unwilling Yudhisthira, after they have built Khandavaprastha and renamed it Indraprastha, to conduct the Rajasuya Yagna, to perform which Yudhisthira must be acknowledged as supreme emperor by everyone, including Jarasandha – which will necessitate the killing of Jarasandha, for he would not acknowledge anyone as an overlord.

And that is precisely what happens. Bhima kills Jarasandha in an epic wrestling match lasting for weeks. Yudhisthira becomes emperor, and Krishna’s future is secure.

So, was it necessary to kill Duryodhana and his brothers? No. And Krishna certainly did not intend to accomplish that in the beginning. The person who did accomplish that, and on whose shoulders we must place squarely the blame of the entire carnage of the great war, is Yudhisthira.

Who was Responsible for the Great War?

Yudhishthira had everything that one could want – four heroic brothers, a beautiful wife, a kingdom rich beyond imagination and made even wealthier by the tributes that they were able to extract from all the monarchs of the realm, powerful alliances with great kings, and a reputation for wisdom and fairness that was known the whole world.

And he ruined everything because of his addiction to gambling. 

Sakuni invited Yudhisthira to gamble, and the epic makes it clear that kshatriya dharma compelled Yudhisthira to accept the challenge and play. Yudhisthira assumes he will be playing Duryodhana and is surprised when he realizes that the much stronger Sakuni will be playing him. Still, he had the choice of playing 2-3 rounds, losing a lot of money and possessions, and then admitting defeat.

There was absolutely no reason for him to keep playing until he had lost all his possessions, then gamble away all his brothers and then himself and finally Draupadi. This is the behaviour of a gambling addict, which is what Yudhisthira is and for which Draupadi upbraids him repeatedly later.

It is because Yudhisthira makes Draupadi a slave of Duryodhana that he is able to insult her in unspeakable terms and it is this that makes a final confrontation with the Kauravas and the death of Duryodhana, Dussasana, and all their brothers inevitable for the Pandavas to salvage their honor.

So it is not Krishna who plots the destruction of the Kauravas. With his friends the Pandavas the overlords of Bharatavarsha, and his one implacable enemy Jarasandha dead, Krishna probably would not have bothered with the Kauravas had Yudhisthira not blundered so badly and unpredictably.

Of course, once war was inevitable, Krishna did everything he could to ensure that the Pandavas (and Krishna himself, by association) were victorious. This included deceit as in the case of Bhishma and Drona, and unfair play as in the case of Jayadratha, Karna, and Duryodhana. Krishna justifies these by saying that the ends justify the means – that Duryodhana had behaved dishonourably with the Pandavas, and was invincible in battle to boot, so cheating is the only way to defeat Duryodhana and, hence, adharma.

The war did not end happily for Krishna. He was cursed for his role in the war by Gandhari to die, and his whole race was cursed to destruction by Gandhari in 36 years time, which came to pass.

So, in practical terms, Krishna's sole motive was security - and he could achieve security with the help of the Pandavas. In return, he helped the Pandavas overcome their enemies the Kauravas.

Can you Compare Today’s Rape Victims to Draupadi?

Can you Compare Today’s Rape Victims to Draupadi?

Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 04 May, 2013

Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar.  All Rights Reserved.

For other articles by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, please visit http://www.leftbrainwave.com

You can reach me on twitter @KumarSeshadri.

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.

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In recent times, there has been a tendency in India to invoke the name of Draupadi, the unfortunate heroine from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, in a variety of contexts.  Satirists and cartoonists often liken the nation (India) to Draupadi herself, with politicians stripping her of everything through scams.  Mother India, as Draupadi, beseeches the Prime Minister for help; as Dhritarashtra was in the epic, Manmohan Singh is silent at this injustice.  Others, outraged by the several recent incidences of rapes of women in India, compare the plight of the rape victims to that of Draupadi being disrobed in the assembly during the game of dice.

How valid are these comparisons?  What was the status of women at the time of the Mahabharata?  Was Draupadi really the model of a liberated woman who insisted on getting justice for the wrongs done to her, and succeeded?  And is the fact that women today are unable to get that kind of justice a reflection of a weakening of women’s status in Indian society, as some believe?  Were women better off in the hoary past?

To understand the answers to these questions better, let us look at some particulars of what happened to Draupadi in the Mahabharata.

The Game of Dice

The Game of Dice is an important incident in the epic Mahabharata, in which the Kauravas, jealous of the prosperity of their cousins the Pandavas, invite them to play a game of dice with them in their court at Hastinapura, in the specially-constructed assembly hall.  Shakuni, the uncle of Duryodhana, the eldest Kaurava, who will play the eldest Pandava, Yudhishthira, in the game that follows, is a master at the game.

Yudhishthira is fond of gambling but is not skilled at it.  He recognizes the dangers of playing dice, but out of politeness, cannot decline the invitation.  Yudhishthira’s mortal weakness is that once he starts playing, he cannot stop.  He is a degenerate gambler.

 

The Kauravas exploit this weakness of Yudhishthira.  He first loses valuables, land, jewels, and all his possessions, but still doesn’t stop playing.  Goaded on by Shakuni, Yudhishthira then gambles away his brothers, one by one, and finally himself.  When he thinks he has lost everything, then Shakuni asks him if he wants to play one last time by gambling something he has not yet gambled – his wife, Draupadi.  The desperate Yudhishthira agrees and loses Draupadi.

Draupadi’s Horror

Drunk with their success, the Kauravas decide to use this opportunity to humiliate the Pandavas.  Duryodhana asks his charioteer to summon Draupadi to the court as a slave of the Kauravas.  She is amazed at the news, and asks a legal question of the assembly: whether, Yudhishthira having lost himself, could stake his wife when he was no longer free.  Duryodhana, in response, asks the charioteer to tell Draupadi to come to the assembly and ask the question herself.  Draupadi refuses, at which point Duryodhana asks his brother Dussasana to bring Draupadi to the assembly, using force if necessary.

Draupadi, on seeing Dussasana approach her, tries to run to the female chambers of Dhritarashtra’s queen Gandhari, but Dussasana drags her by her hair and brings her to the assembly.  In the assembly Draupadi, weeping, asks her question of the elders: whether, having lost himself to Shakuni, Yudhishthira could stake Draupadi.

The Debate in the Assembly

To this, the patriarch Bhishma responds (Ganguli, Sabha Parva, p. 129): “O blessed one, morality is subtle.  I therefore am unable to decide this point that thou has put, beholding that on the one hand one that hath no wealth cannot stake the wealth belonging to others, while on the other hand wives are always under the orders and at the disposal of their lords.  Yudhishthira can abandon the whole world full of wealth, but he will never sacrifice morality.  The son of Pandu hath said, 'I am won.' Therefore, I am unable to decide this matter.  Shakuni hath not his equal among men at dice-play.  The son of Kunti still voluntarily staked with him.  The illustrious Yudhishthira doth not himself regard that Shakuni hath played with him deceitfully.  Therefore, I cannot decide this point.”

This is followed by a protest from Vikarna, one of Duryodhana’s younger brothers, who states his viewpoint that because of Draupadi’s objection that Yudhishthira was no longer a free man when he staked Draupadi, as well as a second point that Draupadi did not belong to Yudhishthira alone, being the common wife of all the brothers, and so could not be staked by Yudhishthira alone.

The matter is finally settled by Karna, who states that since Yudhishthira had lost all his possessions to Shakuni, he had already lost Draupadi, whether or not he staked her explicitly.  He further states that even the clothes on the Pandavas and on Draupadi belong to the Kauravas, and if the Kauravas order it, the Pandavas should remove them.  He asks Dussasana to remove Draupadi’s robes as well.  The Pandavas do not object to any of this, but remove their own upper garments in response.  Dussasana proceeds to remove Draupadi’s single robe in which she is dressed.

What is supposed to have happened, according to the epic, is that as Dussasana tried to remove Draupadi’s robe, new robes kept magically appearing and he was unable to disrobe her because she was praying to Lord Krishna to help and he gave her divine help.  (What actually happened might have been much worse for Draupadi; but we will never know, since history is written by the victors, and the Pandavas, understandably, would not have wanted history to record events that portrayed an indignity to their wife any worse than this.)

Nevertheless, let us take the events as they are recorded, and see what they tell us about the society of those days.

The Status of Women in the Society of the Mahabharata

Note that in all these debates in the assembly, no one (including Draupadi) asks whether a husband has any right to gamble away his wife!  Even the wise Bhishma, who knows the Law (Dharma) better than anyone else, says that “wives are always under the orders and at the disposal of their lords.”  

Draupadi’s own argument is not whether Yudhishthira has any right to stake her, but rather the technical point of whether, having lost himself, he could stake her.  Karna’s argument also appears to have force according to the rules of the day (for no one disputes it) – that if Yudhishthira had lost everything he owned, including himself and his brothers, his wife is automatically lost, being counted as one of his possessions.

Look at poor Draupadi’s plight.  Having been lost by her husband in a game of dice, she had absolutely no legal recourse.  Dussasana, who disrobed her in the assembly, and perhaps worse too, would have been guilty of no crime under the laws of those days, because he was only doing all this with a slave of his, and slaves had no rights.  They belonged to their master, who could do what they pleased with their slaves.  (Remember the abuses meted out to black women during the period of slavery in American history – their owners regularly used them for sex when they wanted it.)

Yudhishthira the Just

The real criminal in this entire episode, and the real reason for all the heartburn and the eventual war in the Mahabharata, is not Duryodhana, Dussasana, or Karna; for they only behaved as a master was allowed to behave with his slaves in those days; but the degenerate gambler husband, Yudhishthira, who doomed his wife to a life of slavery (even if, fortunately, only for a short period) because of his addiction to gambling.  But here is the rub: this act of abandoning his wife to such cruel people is not even considered an offense by the gods of those days. 

In the final chapter of the Mahabharata, the five Pandavas and Draupadi attempt to ascend directly to heaven in human form.  Yudhishthira is the only one who succeeds, the others having fallen and died in the journey as a consequence of their various imperfections; but even he has to spend a sixteenth portion of a day in hell as a penalty for his sins – but the sins do not include abandoning his wife in the game of dice.  The only sin that is counted against Yudhishthira is his having lied on the battlefield about Aswatthama, his preceptor Drona’s son, having died.  

The abandonment of one’s wife is considered to be insignificant, an offense so minor that it pales in comparison with uttering a lie.  In his assembly reply to Draupadi, even Bhishma doesn’t fault Yudhishthira’s morality for staking his wife – instead he praises Yudhishthira for his “morality.”  Abandoning your wife did not affect your moral standing in those days.

Married to Five Men - Willingly?

One should also remember the way Draupadi was married off to the five brothers.  At the swayamvara of Draupadi, it was Arjuna who executed the difficult feat set for the winner who would take Draupadi as a wife.  When they came home, Yudhishthira said to his mother, “Look, mother, what alms we have gotten today!”  And their mother, Kunti, who had not seen Draupadi with the brothers, simply said, “Whatever it is, share it equally among yourselves.”  A casual comment like that, said in ignorance, was treated as an order, and the five brothers decided to wed Draupadi together.  

In the entire discussion that follows with Draupadi’s father, Drupada, not once does anyone ask Draupadi if she has an opinion about the matter – that she was to be shared by five men.  There is an extensive discussion on whether five brothers marrying one woman would be committing a sin, and when Drupada is relieved of that concern, he gives his assent to the wedding.  Whether Draupadi cares about her body being shared is no one’s concern.  

(I should add here that Satya Chaitanya has argued, reasonably convincingly, that Draupadi’s silence during this entire episode is completely at odds with her generally vocal and assertive nature elsewhere in the epic, and suggests that Vyasa whitewashed some portions of the epic to remove content that would have been unacceptable to the society of his times, such as Draupadi’s objections to this arrangement.)

In addition to having to physically compromise herself in this way, poor Draupadi also has to be the butt of offensive taunts, such as the one Karna throws at her in the assembly after she has been gambled away: “The gods have ordained only one husband for one woman.  This Draupadi, however, hath many husbands.  Therefore, certain it is that she is an unchaste woman.  To bring her, therefore, into this assembly attired though she be in one piece of cloth – even to uncover her is not at all an act that may cause surprise.”  Draupadi pays for the foolishness of her husbands who trap her in this unconventional marriage that is not fully accepted even in their society – by men who were therefore duty-bound to protect her – but whose failure to do so is not counted as a sin or a failure in the epic.

Conclusion

So, while it is easy to talk about the gang rape victims in India and compare them to Draupadi, remember that in the age of Draupadi, women had no rights.  They were treated as chattel to be used at their fathers’ and husbands’ whims.  At least, in today’s India, women have some rights, and they don’t belong to their husbands.

Violence occurs today as well against women, but at least it is regarded as a crime.  Even if Dussasana had raped Draupadi in the assembly hall, the nobles assembled in the court wouldn’t have even filed their society’s equivalent of an FIR. 

After all, she was their slave.

But, in the end, though, Draupadi did have the last laugh.  Bhima tore out Dussasana’s heart in the great battle, tore out his arms that had dragged Draupadi by the hair, drank the blood from Dussasana’s still-beating heart, broke Duryodhana’s thighs and killed him. 

Those who insulted Draupadi paid for the insults with their lives.  Draupadi may not have had legal recourse for the insults done to her, but most rape victims today would be delighted if they could get that kind of revenge on the men who raped them.  One could argue that the FIRs they file against their rapists aren’t worth the paper they are written on, and they would any day trade them for a good old eye-for-an-eye, the way Draupadi handed it to Dussasana and Duryodhana.

But then, you need a husband like Bhima.  Any qualified volunteers?

References

Ganguli, K.M., The Mahabharata – Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2002 (Original Publication 1883-1896).  Online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m01/index.htm

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my wife, Sandhya, for reading a draft of this article and giving valuable comments that, in my estimation, have helped improve this article.