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| Daughter Of Kandahar |
Girja Kumar
02/14/2013
The Indus People: Saraiki Saga and Sufi-Sant Renaissance is a Discovery of India beyond its borders. It is about multiple self-identities, with the Mahabharata identity being one of them. It is a common heritage and indeed Mahabharata genes run through the veins of all of us belonging to Jumbudesha that is India.
The chapters devoted to the great classic constitute the backdrop to the main theme of the book relating to Sindhudesha (or Sindhu-Sauvirah, Souveer and Survira), the original home of Rigvedic Sindhu (Indus). As a matter of speaking, all of us hailing from Kandhar / Kabul to Kanyakumari are the Indus people in civilizational terms. Here are a few extracts from the book about the remarkable daughter of Kandhar, otherwise known by the name of Gandhari, the Queen-Empress of Bharatvarsha.
The brave lady had foreseen the tragedy and momentarily thought of cursing Krishna, Yudhishtira, and his brothers leaving her and the blind king issueless, but Vyasa dissuaded her be advising her, “This was not the timeâ€, to blame or curse anyone. She found it hard to be dissuaded for she had been deprived of her sons, grandsons, brothers, nephews, her son-in-law and her entire male family. She found it hard to pardon Bheema, who had killed her eight sons on the last day of the war and ended killing her eldest son Duryodhana through trickery in the end. She must have been reminded of the day she had removed her eye cover briefly, to glance at the strong thighs of infant Duryodhana. It was the mother’s proud expression of her instinctive love for her new born. She had taken pity on the blind king, who was entirely bereft of any clutch in his old age.
Debt to Pay
Gandhari was preoccupied because she had other debts to clear. She was busy collecting 100 golden vessels for performing the intricate rites of the shradha for each of her hundred Kshatriya sons. She had a debt to pay. She was subsequently freed of the debt after performing the rituals she owed to her sons and grandchildren. The great burden was now off her chest. In normal circumstances, her sons would have been obligated to perform the ritual for her. Now the process had been reversed. She had also time to think of her widowed but beloved daughter, Duhshala, who her own mourning to do. It was a pathetic sight for her. She had a horde of her daughters-in-law wailing loudly, on the Kurukshetra battlefield within her hearing distance. Gandhari had enough on her plate. She was also to mourn the death of her six brothers and her nephew Uluka. She was confronted with the mourning and wailing Draupadi, who lost her five sons, through treachery while they were asleep. Gandhari was overheard telling Draupadi that her grief was greater than hers, but she was absolved by placating others, rather than thinking of her own grief.
Gandhari was a strong critic of the war. She was also an acute observer of the scene, watching events from close quarters. Her interventions were subtle and she was always on the side of peace. She was as much critical of her husband, as of her elder son and brother. While grieving over the death of her sons, she kept her cool. She chose to be chief spokesman of the grieving and suffering Kaurava women. She held Krishna responsible for the war and told him in no uncertain terms that she did not mourn as much the dead as the living, like her blind husband and widowed daughters-in-law, and other teeming humanity.
There was no public expression of grief by Gandhari, but there was plenty to preoccupy her in her public grief. It even made Krishna join Gandhari and Dhritarashtra in shedding a tear or two. Her misery was compounded due to her divine vision, which let her go over the entire Mahabharata was day-by-day and moment-by-moment. She could re-live the slaughter of each of her sons reel by reel. She could find no rationale for the 18-day war. She attributed all this to her karma, as well as of her daughters-in-law for sins committed in past lives. She also realized fully that it was not the actual fact. The Mahabharata was to be attributed to human folly, repeated again and again.
Rational Explanation
She also had a rational explanation for the Mahabharata war. She attributed it to the machinations of her elder son and her brother Shakuni. How she wished Shakuni to have stayed back in Gandhara and not blighted the peaceful atmosphere of Hastinapur. She showed no remorse for Shakuini’s corpse lying in the battlefield. She never pardoned her eldest son. On his deathbed, her son Duryadhana, however, remembered her with much affection and wished to be born and re-born as her loving son, perhaps to be another Duryodhana in age after age.
In the end, it was left to uncle Vidura, and her step-son Yuyutsu and his faithful charioteer Sanjay (of the clairvoyant vision) to comfort the ageing king, “Uncle Vidura would press the hand and ... his forehead and Yuyutsu would massage his father’s feet and legs, trying to make peace flow into that body rocked with the mind’s agonyâ€. Gandhari needed no props of this kind, but she was a pillar of strength to the surviving Pandavas and Kauravas. She repaid the debt with compound interest that Gandhara, the land of her birth, owed to Bharatvarsha. Gandhari is fit enough to be adopted as a role model for the native Pathan community. It shall be an honour to them.
Daughter of Kandahar
The daughter of Kandahar had all but forgotten her homeland in the hurly-burly of Hastinapur. So much was happening around her. Her marriage to the blind king Dhritarashtra was a boon to the couple. He saw the world through her eyes, “I know itâ€, Dhritarashtra stood and walked to the Ganga even though he could not see the waves of the Ganga river outside. Gandhari knew that he liked to feel the sun’s rays on his skin and listen to the waves of the flowing river. “Believe me, my lady, I know itâ€. She had an entire brood to look after. She shared their joys and sorrows in equal measure. The happy times were a brief interlude in her long life.
Finally the Mahabharata was came upon her as a load of heavy bricks. She was neutral on the side of the just cause. When her eldest son Duryodhana sought her blessings on the eve of the war, she told him bluntly, “Yatho Dharma Stato Jayahâ€, (where there is Dharma, there lies victory). Each day of the war brought sorrow upon her head. “Today how many are left?†Each child left (dead) was new sorrow. At the finale she was reconciled to the inevitable, “There is nothing to hope for, with nothing to fear.†It was virtually the end of the yuga. There was nothing left for her but to preside over funeral rites and perform oblation for the dead on the battlefield.
The couple, accompanied by Vidura and Kunti, moved to the foot of the Himalayas as their future abode. It was not to be. They were constantly restless. They moved further deep into the forest in high mountains and were consumed by nagging fears. It was virtually an act of sati, initiated by the male companion.
Just before the act of living sati, with a difference, Gandhari was reminded of her beloved homeland, “Since we came here, the mountain breeze, the thick carpet of needles under foot, the light smell of pines, the sighing of the forest in the breeze, and the constant murmuring of the river, all have reminded me of Gandhara, and without realization, I sighedâ€. The long-drawn Hastinapur interlude was a mere full stop in her fathomless subconscious. Her companions from Gandhara days addressed her as the ‘princess’ and the Kaurava Queen of Bharatvarsha, was the “Princess of Gandhara†at the bottom of her heart. Swaha it was for her.
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