Madri
| Madri | |
|---|---|
 A print on Madri by Raja Ravi Varma | |
| Personal Information | |
| Spouse | Pandu |
| Children | Sons
Step-sons (Kunti)
|
| Relatives | Shalya (brother) |
| Origin | Madra |
Madri (Sanskrit: माद्री, IAST: Mādrī) is a princess from the Madra Kingdom mentioned in the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. She became the second wife of Pandu, the king of the Kuru Kingdom, and was the mother of the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, the youngest of the five Pandava brothers who play a central role in the epic.
Madri was also the sister of Shalya, and her marriage to Pandu was arranged by Bhishma, the elder of the Kuru dynasty. Following a curse placed upon Pandu, which would lead to his death if he engaged in intimate relations, Madri accompanied him in his self-imposed exile, along with Pandu's first wife, Kunti. With Pandu's consent and Kunti's divine assistance, Madri invoked the twin deities Nasatya and Darsa, collectively known as the Ashvins, receiving their blessing and subsequently giving birth to her sons, Nakula and Sahadeva.
Madri was renowned for her beauty and is described in the epic as being exceptionally attractive; as a result, Pandu one day succumbed to desire and attempted to make love to her, which led to his death due to the curse. Overcome with remorse and grief, Madri entrusted her sons, Nakula and Sahadeva, to Kunti’s care and chose to jump into Pandu's funeral pyre, joining him in death.
Name
[edit]Indologist Monier Monier-Williams explains that the Sanskrit feminine name Mādrī is derived from Madra (lit. 'joy' or 'happiness'), the name of her native kingdom in the northwestern Indian subcontinent. Therefore, Mādrī means 'princess of Madra'.[1]
Madri belonged to the Bahlika clan, which originated from Bactria in Central Asia. Thus, she is also referred to as Bahliki (Bāhlikī) in few instances in the epic.[2]
Biography
[edit]Madri's story is narrated in the Adi Parva ('the Book of Beginnings') of the epic Mahabharata. She is mentioned as an incarnation of a minor goddess named Dhriti ('Endurance'). Madri is described being dark complexioned and exceedingly attractive.[3]
Marriage and exile
[edit]Madri was the sister of Shalya, the king of the Madra Kingdom. Bhishma, a prominent statesman of the Kuru Kingdom and the grandsire of the royal family, traveled to Madra to secure Madri's hand in marriage for Pandu, the king of the Kuru Kingdom. Shalya consented, but in accordance with Madra family custom, Bhishma presented him with a dowry, consisting of wealth, gold, elephants, and horses. Bhishma then brought Madri to Hastinapura, the capital of Kuru, where she was married to Pandu.[4][5]
Pandu had a first wife, Kunti, though Madri considered herself superior in lineage and regarded Kunti as her rival. Shortly after his marriage, Pandu embarked on a series of military conquests to expand his kingdom’s influence. Following these successful campaigns, he went to tapovana (forest of austerities) south of Himalayas, accompanied by both his wives, Kunti and Madri. During the expedition in a forest, he observed a pair of deer in the act of coitus and desiring to hunt them, shot arrows at them. Upon approaching, he realized that the deer were, in fact, the sage Kindama and his wife, who had assumed the form of deer to enjoy privacy. As he lay dying, the sage pronounced a curse upon Pandu, decreeing that he would die instantly should he ever engage in sexual relations. Disturbed by the gravity of his actions and seeking repentance, Pandu chose to relinquish his royal duties and live an ascetic life in the forest. Both Kunti and Madri accompanied him in his self-imposed exile. After travelling to various pilgrim sites, they settled in the Shatashringa forests under the care of sages who lived there.[4][6]
Birth of Nakula and Sahadeva
[edit]Kunti, the first wife of Pandu, possessed a mantra granted by the sage Durvasa prior to her marriage, which allowed her to summon any deity of her choice and bear a child by them. She had kept this boon a closely guarded secret. During his exile, Pandu, hindered in fulfilling his religious duties due to his lack of an heir, discussed the matter with Kunti, urging her to "raise offspring in this time of distress." He cited six types of sons as recognised by religious doctrines, with an additional six types in a supplementary list. At this juncture, Kunti disclosed her boon, though she initially resisted using it. Only after Pandu’s fervent pleas did Kunti invoke her boon, resulting in the birth of her three sons—Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna—each fathered by a different god chosen by Pandu after an interval of one year each.[7] When Pandu requested Kunti to bear more children, Kunti firmly refused, stating that doing so would diminish her dignity and reduce her to the status of a prostitude.[4][5]
Madri, in a private moment with Pandu, expressed that she felt overshadowed by Kunti, as her position seemed secondary to Kunti’s in both Pandu’s affections and household dynamics, a feeling intensified by Madri’s awareness of her own superior birth. She conveyed her grief over being childless and requested that Pandu seek Kunti’s assistance to allow her to become a mother. However, Madri was hesitant to approach Kunti directly, referring to her as her 'rival'. Upon Pandu's request, Kunti shared the boon with Madri, who invoked the twin-gods, the Ashvins, to beget Nakula and Sahadeva at once. The Kaunteyas (lit. 'sons of Kunti') and Madreyas (lit. 'sons of Madri') are raised together in the hermitage, and they are collectively referred to as the Pandavas.[4]
After some time, Madri, through Pandu, asked Kunti for the assistance to bear more children. However, Kunti firmly refused the request, expressing her frustration by noting that Madri had "deceived" her by using a single mantra to gain two sons. She voiced her regret, fearing that Madri might end up with more children than herself, and admitted she would have also summoned the Ashvins to obtain twins had she known. Concluding her response, Kunti insisted that Pandu "not come to [her] again" with requests to give Madri the mantra.[5]
Death
[edit]
During springtime in the forest of Shatashringa, Pandu was affected by the atmosphere's intensity. One day, while walking alone with Madri in this setting, Pandu saw her in translucent clothes and succumbed to desire. Despite Madri’s repeated protests, Pandu embraced her, forgetting the curse placed upon him by the sage Kindama, which forbade him from intimate relations on penalty of death. The curse took immediate effect, and Pandu fell dead in Madri’s arms.[7] Upon Pandu’s death, Madri cried out in sorrow, summoning Kunti but asking her to come alone, leaving the children behind. Kunti, seeing Pandu and Madri together, questioned how Madri allowed him to be alone with her, given the curse. Madri explained that despite her resistance, Pandu’s overwhelming desire fulfilled the curse's terms. Kunti sorrowfully noted that Madri was "fortunate" to have seen Pandu's face radiant in intimacy—a moment Kunti herself had never experienced[5][4] Following this, Kunti, as the senior wife, claimed the religious duty to accompany Pandu in death, believing it her responsibility to follow him to the afterlife. She asked Madri to relinquish his body and take on the task of raising their children.[4]
Madri, however, resisted Kunti’s request, stating that she felt bound to Pandu by an unfulfilled union, as he had approached her in desire at the time of his death. Madri expressed her wish to follow Pandu into the afterlife to fulfill his desire,[8] also fearing she might not be able to raise Kunti’s children with equal dedication and affection. She appealed to Kunti to care for her own children, Nakula and Sahadeva, in her absence, trusting in Kunti’s ability to provide for them impartially. During Pandu's funeral, Madri chose to jump into Pandu's funeral pyre despite the assembled sages trying to dissuade from the resolve.[5][4][8][9]
The stanza in the Mahabharata states that Madri performed suicide by sati.[note 1] However, this account is contradicted by the very next stanza, which states that her dead body and that of her husband were handed over by sages to the Kaurava elders in Hastinapura for the funeral rites.[11]
Assessment
[edit]Mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik challenges the assumption that Madri’s death in the Mahabharata supports the practice of sati, arguing instead that this interpretation reflects later cultural and textual interpolations during the mediaeval period.[note 2] He begins by questioning the peculiar detail of Madri and Pandu’s double cremation: once in the forest, where Madri supposedly joins her husband on the funeral pyre, and again upon their return to Hastinapur. Some scholars suggest this could refer to the secondary cremation of bones, yet, Pattanaik argues, these scholars overlook important story elements that imply Madri’s sati may have been a later addition. Pattanaik identifies further inconsistencies in Mahabharata episodes involving Krishna’s death, where some wives perform sati while others adopt asceticism, and other episodes where widows like those of the Kauravas, or those in the Ramayana like Tara and Mandodari, who don't perform sati instead rejoin the families assuming different roles. These discrepancies suggest that the scenes may have been altered by later writers to align with mediaeval values that promoted widow immolation as a mark of honour and loyalty. While discussing the second cremation, Pattnaik suggests that it is likely Madri had died instantly alongside Pandu from the curse that Kindama placed on Pandu, and thus she would have had no opportunity to perform sati.[12]
In popular culture
[edit]- In B. R. Chopra's 1988 series Mahabharat, Madri was portrayed by Roma Manek.[13]
- In the 2013 Star Plus's series Mahabharat (2013), Madri was portrayed by Suhani Dhanki.[14]
Notes
[edit]- ^ The critical edition of the Mahabharata presents a brief exchange between Kunti and Madri, after which it simply states that "the daughter of the king of the Madras, Pandu’s revered wife, followed the noble one onto his funeral pyre." In contrast, the Southern Recension offers additional details, describing how sages and the "foremost Brahmanas" attempted to dissuade both Kunti and Madri from their intent to perform sati.[10]
- ^ The glamorization of sati, Pattanaik argues, appears to have emerged later, between the 5th and 15th centuries CE among warrior communities, especially as a means to protect family honor and prevent the capture of war widows by victorious enemies. In these communities, sati became a symbol of loyalty and dignity, and sati stones were raised in honor of women who chose—or were compelled—to perform it. This glamorization was especially prominent among Bengali Brahmin families in the 19th century, where patriarchal customs like child marriage and caste purity reinforced widow immolation. Additionally, British colonial accounts, Pattanaik notes, exaggerated and sensationalized sati to portray Indian society as barbaric, justifying colonial intervention in the eyes of European intellectual circles.
References
[edit]- ^ Monier-Williams, Sir Monier (1999). A Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymological and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 978-81-206-0369-1.
- ^ White, David Gordon (7 May 1991). Myths of the Dog-Man. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-89509-3.
- ^ Walker, Benjamin (9 April 2019). Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism. In Two Volumes. Volume I A-L. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-62465-0.
- ^ a b c d e f g Debalina (20 December 2019). Into the Myths: A Realistic Approach Towards Mythology and Epic. Partridge Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5437-0576-8.
- ^ a b c d e Bhattacharya, Pradip. ""One-in Herself" Why Kunti Remains a Kanya" (PDF). Manushi India Organization. Retrieved 10 January 2013.
- ^ Ramankutty, P.V. (1999). Curse as a motif in the Mahābhārata (1. ed.). Delhi: Nag Publishers. ISBN 9788170814320.
- ^ a b www.wisdomlib.org (28 January 2019). "Story of Pāṇḍu". www.wisdomlib.org. Retrieved 12 November 2024.
- ^ a b Doniger, Wendy (March 2014). On Hinduism. OUP USA. ISBN 978-0-19-936007-9.
- ^ Sagar, Krishna Chandra (1992). Foreign Influence on Ancient India. Northern Book Centre. ISBN 978-81-7211-028-4.
- ^ Sharma, Arvind (1988). Sati: Historical and Phenomenological Essays. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. p. 25-26. ISBN 978-81-208-0464-7.
- ^ M. A. Mehendale (1 January 2001). Interpolations In The Mahabharata. pp. 200–201.
- ^ Devdutt.com (17 March 2024). "Maybe Madri Did Not Commit Sati?". Devdutt Pattanaik. Retrieved 14 November 2024.
- ^ "31 years of Mahabharat on Doordarshan: Interesting facts about one of most popular TV shows ever". The Financial Express. 2 October 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
- ^ "An epic for an epic, on small screen - All-new Mahabharata". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 31 May 2022. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
External links
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