Pandu, cursed to die if and when he attempts sexual intercourse, chooses life in the forest. His wives, Kunti and Madri, follow him there. Back in the royal palace, Dhritarashtra’s wife, Gandhari, is pregnant. Things are shaping up such that the kingdom shall revert to Dhritarashtra’s eldest son, with Pandu’s side of the family tree set for an early truncation.
Thankfully for Pandu, divine (or brahman) intervention is readily available. Kunti has a unique boon from the sage Durvasa, a boon that grants her the ability to summon a god and ask him to grant her an offspring (she has already tested the procedure once, with Surya). Gandhari’s gestation period is inordinately extended, almost as if to allow Pandu and his wives to make their next move. One soon understands that the sexual nullification of Pandu is a necessity of the plot (no wonder it’s caused by a brahman’s curse), one that allows the Pandavas to be half-divine.
Pandu’s desire for sons leads him to demand that Kunti seek a man ‘superior’ to him and bear sons from the union. Kunti refuses at first; and narrates an awkward story from ancient times when a king’s wife united with the king’s corpse and managed to get pregnant. This is Kunti’s invitation to Pandu, for sex and death, both; perhaps it is her dharma to forward this invitation before agreeing to unite with someone other than her husband.
Pandu is suspicious whether such a practice will work for them, and repeats his earlier demand. Kunti then reveals the boon she possesses. Pandu is delighted to learn of it. And thus, Dharma is summoned, and Yudhishthira is born from him. Vayu is next, and Bhima is born from him. Indra is last, and Arjuna is born from him. It is Bhima’s birth that coincides with Duryodhana’s.
The text suggests that Kunti’s impregnation does not involve actual sex with the gods, and is the result of ‘rites given to (Kunti) by Durvasa’. Yet, when Pandu asks her for more sons, she berates him by saying that a woman who bears four sons ‘is called promiscuous’, and five, ‘a courtesan’. Why is she worried about this? Is it a worry about public image, or is it a worry about self-image? (This doesn’t apply to Gandhari, note, as she gives birth to a hundred sons from a single impregnation.)
If one counts Karna, Kunti has already reached number four with Arjuna. One thus sees how Arjuna’s birth and Karna’s anonymity are linked. Had the truth about Karna been known, it would have been impossible for Kunti (by her own logic) to give birth to Arjuna without being called promiscuous. It follows that the greatest Pandava prince, with Indra’s traits, would not have been born had his mother not kept her first son’s birth a secret. Looked at this way, Arjuna’s very birth is predicated on the injustice meted out to Karna.
(The writer’s first novel ‘Neon Noon’ is now available)