CHENNAI: In the Sambhava parva of the Mahabharata, as Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidura grow up, details of their marriages and the further propagation of the lineage — and thus the first whispers of the conflict that would define the epic — are provided to us.
Gandhari, daughter of the king Subala of Gandhara, is married to Dhritarashtra; and Pritha, daughter of the Yadava king Shura (this Krishna’s sister) is married to Pandu. Pandu, being king, gets another wife as an insurance policy. Madri, daughter of the king of Madri, is also wed to him.
Pandu’s reign is defined as one of conquests and alliances, in which the Kuru dynasty recovers its old domination (as it was at the time of king Bharata) in the Gangetic plains. Pandu is said to have defeated the kings of Magadha, Mithila and Kashi.
With the last one, Kashi, the enmity could have been the result of the abduction of Ambika and Ambalika by Bhishma, and their marriage-by-force to the Kuru king Vichitravirya.
Other marital alliances mentioned above must also have secured an enduring friendship with the Yadavas of Dwarka, king Subala of Gandhara, and the king Jayadratha of Sindh (through marriage with Duhshala, Dhritarashtra’s daughter).
This extraordinary expansion of the kingdom is commensurate only with an increase in politics inside the Hastinapura palace. Dhritarashtra keenly celebrates Pandu’s victories. But his wife, Gandhari, wants to produce an heir before Pandu’s wife, Pritha, can. She gets pregnant before Pritha, but her gestation extends to over two years.
This probably has to do with a boon she received earlier, a boon for a hundred sons. In any case, Pritha delivers Yudhistira before Gandhari can give birth. When she is given this news, Gandhari grows so upset that she punches her own belly in rage. The miscarriage leads to a lump of flesh getting out of her body.
This lump is then treated by Dvaipayana, through a rather extraordinary process involving cool water and ghee and whatnot, such that within a month a hundred sons emerge from it. The first one is, of course, Duryodhana.
Dhritarashtra then invites learned men to ask whether his first-born will ever become king. At this point, he himself concedes that Yudhishtira will be king.
His only question is whether Duryodhana can become king after Yudhishtira. In other words, will the anomaly of him not being king, because he was blind, ever be corrected?
It seems a logical question, but the learned men, including Vidura, are able to see how this curiosity may in future become an ambition, and subsequently a conflict.
They advise Dhritarashtra to abandon Duryodhana, and demand this sacrifice for the good of the kingdom. I am pleased that Dhritarashtra doesn’t heed the advice, not only because this would mean that there would be no war, and thus no epic, but also because at this point in the story, I’m on his side of the argument.
(The writer’s first novel ‘Neon Noon’ is now available)