Dhṛtarāshṭra Vana Gamana

Dhṛtarāshṭra, the blind king of the Kurus, spent fifteen years at Hastināpura after the Kurukshetra war. Then he left the city to live in the forest (vana gamana, going to the forest) with his wife Gāndhārī. He gained liberation at the end of his life.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa tells how Vidura woke him to the need to renounce, how the three left in the night, and how Dhṛtarāshṭra and Gāndhārī gave up the body through yoga at Saptasrotas. The Mahābhārata tells the same departure at much greater length in its Āśramavāsika Parva (the book of the life in the forest hermitage). Both accounts are given below.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa account

Fifteen years of grief

After the Kurukshetra war, Dhṛtarāshṭra stayed at Hastināpura. Yudhishṭhira served him with full respect, as a son serves an aged father. He gave him all the provisions that Dhṛtarāshṭra had known as king. But Dhṛtarāshṭra was broken inside. All his hundred sons had died. He had ruled as a tool of his son Duryodhana’s ambition and had failed at every point where dharma asked him to act. Now he was a guest in the palace of the men his household had tried to destroy. He bore this in silence and ate the food of those he had wronged for fifteen years.

Vidura’s counsel

Vidura came back from his long tīrtha-yātrā (pilgrimage). He carried the ātmajñāna (knowledge of the self) that he had received from Maitreya Maharshi. He came to Hastināpura, met Yudhishṭhira and the household, and then went to Dhṛtarāshṭra in private.

Vidura spoke with the sharpness that true kindness needs:

“Arise, O King, arise now. Terrible fear is ahead. Kāla, Time, is already at your door. Your body betrays you. Your hearing dims, your digestion fails, your teeth loosen, and those eyes that were never of use even in sight are now clouding over. Look at what you have. You are eating the food of men whose fathers you wronged, in the house of those you tried to destroy. For fifteen years you have done this. What do you give them in return? Even a dog that eats at another’s table earns its place. You do not. This is not blame. It is the urgent call to wake up. The time left is short. Renounce this now. Take Gāndhārī. Go northward into the forest. This is the path.”

The departure

In the last hours of that night, before dawn, Dhṛtarāshṭra got up. He took the hand of Gāndhārī, who had bandaged her own eyes for his sake all through their life together and who would follow him now as she had always done. Vidura led the way. The three walked out of Hastināpura in silence, without waking the household and without farewell.

They went north, toward the Gaṅgā and the Himālaya.

Yudhishṭhira’s distress

Yudhishṭhira came back from his morning prayers and found Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Vidura gone. He was filled with dread. He feared the worst: that the blind old king, bitter from the war and shamed by living on others’ help, had gone to throw himself into the Gaṅgā in despair. He called the servants and the household. No one knew anything. He questioned everyone, and learned nothing.

Then Nārada Maharshi came and told him what had happened. Dhṛtarāshṭra had followed Vidura’s counsel. He had gone with Gāndhārī and Vidura to a forest hermitage on the Gaṅgā near Saptasrotas in the Himālaya, for final renunciation. Yudhishṭhira was comforted. He understood that this was the path of dharma: the natural way of an aged householder toward the forest and finally toward liberation.

Liberation at Saptasrotas

At the hermitage near Saptasrotas on the Gaṅgā, Dhṛtarāshṭra took up the austerities of vānaprastha (the forest stage of life) under Vidura’s guidance. He ate less, fasted, and began prāṇāyāma (breath control). His body grew lean and his mind slowly turned away from outer things. He practised the advanced yoga of drawing the inner fire through the body. In this prāṇāyāma, control of breath step by step kindles the elements of the body and burns away the material vehicle.

In due course Dhṛtarāshṭra’s body was consumed in this yoga-fire. His jīva (the living self) merged into the Supreme Brahman.

Gāndhārī entered the same fire. This is called anugamana, following her husband. She followed him into liberation as she had followed him through life. Vidura saw both events.

Later Nārada reported all this to Yudhishṭhira at Hastināpura. Yudhishṭhira was freed from his grief and performed the proper śrāddha rites.

The Mahābhārata account: Āśramavāsika Parva

Fifteen years and the decision to renounce (Chapters 1–4)

For fifteen years after the war, Yudhishṭhira and his brothers honoured Dhṛtarāshṭra and Gāndhārī as rulers in all but name and tended every wish of theirs. Only Bhīma kept his old anger at the Kauravas inside him, though he never went against Yudhishṭhira’s wish to honour the old king.

At last Bhīma spoke bitter words that recalled the deaths of Dhṛtarāshṭra’s sons. Dhṛtarāshṭra then told the whole court that the ruin of the Kuru race was his own fault. He had raised Duryodhana high and ignored the advice of Vidura, Bhīshma, Droṇa, Kṛpa and Vyāsa. He asked Yudhishṭhira’s leave to go to the forest with Gāndhārī, as was the old custom of their line.

Yudhishṭhira was distressed and at first refused. The aged king, weak from an eight-day fast, fainted into Gāndhārī’s lap. Then Vyāsa arrived. He gave his own approval to the departure and spoke of the king’s age and grief. Yudhishṭhira made himself Vyāsa’s disciple and son, and agreed.

Dhṛtarāshṭra’s last counsel and farewell (Chapters 5–14)

Before leaving, Dhṛtarāshṭra gave Yudhishṭhira a long discourse on rājanīti (the policy of kings). It covered:

the eight parts of a kingdom (saptāṅga and ashṭāṅga rājya)
the maṇḍala theory of dealings with other kingdoms
the six measures of policy (shāḍguṇya)
the “reed policy” (vaitasī-vṛtti) of bending before a stronger force
the threefold strength of a king
the fivefold army
the battle formations (vyūhas) taught by Śukrācārya

It was a full political testament.

He then asked to make a great dāna (gift) to free his fallen sons from the state of preta. He formally said farewell to the gathered citizens of Kuru-jāṅgala. He forgave the faults of Duryodhana. He placed Yudhishṭhira in the people’s care, as a trust (nyāsa) held by both sides. The citizens gave him their forgiveness and blessing through the speech of the brāhmaṇa Sāmba, who put the war’s destruction down to daiva (fate).

A śrāddha and a ten-day dāna-yajña followed for Bhīshma, Droṇa, Somadatta, Bāhlīka and Jayadratha. Bhīma at first bitterly refused to pay for it, and then gave way.

The departure and Kuntī’s renunciation (Chapters 15–18)

In the month of Kārtika, Dhṛtarāshṭra performed the udavasanīya ishṭi and took the vānaprastha dīkshā (vow of the forest life) with Gāndhārī. They put on bark garments and carried the sacred fire before them. They left Hastināpura by the Vardhamāna Gate while the whole city grieved. People remembered the day the Pāṇḍavas had gone out by the same gate after the dice game.

Yudhishṭhira fell at the king’s feet. Arjuna, Bhīma, Nakula, Sahadeva, Vidura, Sañjaya, Yuyutsu and Dhaumya followed, weeping. So did Draupadī, Subhadrā, Uttarā carrying the infant Parīkshit, Duśśalā and Citrāṅgadā. Kuntī walked beside them and guided the blindfolded Gāndhārī.

Yudhishṭhira begged his mother to turn back, but she refused. She confessed that after the dice game and Draupadī’s humiliation she had stirred up her sons on purpose with burning words. She said she no longer wanted the fruits of the kingdom. She wanted tapas and reunion with Pāṇḍu in his loka.

Ashamed, the Pāṇḍavas went back to a joyless Hastināpura. Dhṛtarāshṭra’s party went on to the bank of the Gaṅgā. There they set up the nightly agnihotra and sandhyā rites.

Tapas at Kurukshetra and Nārada’s word about the future (Chapters 19–20)

The party reached Kurukshetra and the āśrama of the rājarshi (royal seer) Śatayūpa, a former king of Kekaya. At Vyāsa’s direction, Śatayūpa taught Dhṛtarāshṭra the full rules of vānaprastha. Gāndhārī and Kuntī took up matching austerities.

Nārada, Parvata and Devala came there with Vyāsa and foretold the end of four people:

Dhṛtarāshṭra, after three more years of tapas, would join Kubera’s realm and move through svarga in a kāmagamana vimāna (a flying vehicle that goes where one wishes).
Kuntī would rejoin Pāṇḍu.
Vidura would merge into Yudhishṭhira.
Sañjaya would reach svarga by meditating on Yudhishṭhira.

The later chapters tell how this came true.

Yudhishṭhira’s journey and the meeting at the āśrama (Chapters 21–25)

At Hastināpura the Pāṇḍavas missed Kuntī. Each time they spoke among themselves of the war dead, their grief returned. They found no more joy in the work of the kingdom, in their wives, or even in the study of the Veda. The whole city shared their sorrow and wondered how the aged, sightless Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Kuntī were faring, unprotected in the wilderness.

One day Sahadeva told Yudhishṭhira that he longed to see his mother again, worn thin as she now was by tapas. Draupadī agreed at once and said she wished to see Kuntī while she herself still lived.

Yudhishṭhira was moved. He ordered a great company made ready overnight: chariots, elephants, camels, horses, palanquins, supplies, treasury and craftsmen. Any citizen who wished could join. The ācārya Kṛpa, of the Gautama line, led the escorting army as commander, with Arjuna in overall charge of protection. Yuyutsu and Dhaumya stayed behind to guard Hastināpura.

The company travelled five days before it reached the forest. It crossed the Yamunā and entered Kurukshetra. From far off they saw the āśrama of Śatayūpa and Dhṛtarāshṭra, and they entered it with cries of joy.

The Pāṇḍavas got down at a distance and walked up in humility. The tāpasas (ascetics) living there told them that Dhṛtarāshṭra had gone to bathe in the Yamunā. They followed the path they were shown and found him coming back with flowers and a water-pot.

Sahadeva ran ahead of the others to reach Kuntī first. He wept at her feet. She embraced him and presented him to Gāndhārī. Then Yudhishṭhira, Bhīma, Arjuna and Nakula came to her in turn. Dhṛtarāshṭra and Gāndhārī could not see, so the family knew one another by voice and touch. They fell to the ground together, and then rose and were comforted.

The whole company of women, courtiers and townspeople then paid respect to the king. Yudhishṭhira presented them to him by name and gotra (family line).

When all were seated in the āśrama, among tāpasas who had come from many lands to see the broad-chested sons of Pāṇḍu, Sañjaya introduced each of the Pāṇḍavas and their women by name, at the ṛshis’ request. They were Yudhishṭhira, Bhīmasena, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva, Draupadī, Subhadrā, Ulūpī, Citrāṅgadā, Uttārā with the infant Parīkshit, and the widowed daughters-in-law of the Kuru house. Dhṛtarāshṭra then asked after the welfare of each of the royal sons present, according to rank.

The forest-fire deaths at Gaṅgādvāra (Chapter 37)

The Pāṇḍavas’ visit to the āśrama is told in Chapters 21 to 36, which include a vision of the fallen warriors by the Gaṅgā. Two years after that visit, Nārada came uninvited to Yudhishṭhira’s court. He reported that Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī, Kuntī and Sañjaya had moved on to Gaṅgādvāra.

There the king did six months of extreme tapas. He held a vīṭāmukha in his mouth and lived on air alone. Gāndhārī took only water. Kuntī ate once a month.

One day, as he came back from his bath in the Gaṅgā, a great wildfire driven by wind swept the forest. Dhṛtarāshṭra was too weak from his austerity to flee. He sent Sañjaya to safety. Then he sat facing east, with Gāndhārī and Kuntī beside him, entered yoga, and let the fire take the three of them. Sañjaya alone escaped, to the Himālaya.

Yudhishṭhira’s lament and Nārada’s answer (Chapters 38–39)

Yudhishṭhira’s grief at this news turned into a bitter charge against Agni as kṛtaghna (ungrateful). He recalled that Arjuna had once fully satisfied Agni at Khāṇḍava, and now Agni had now seemingly burned his own mother.

Nārada answered that no worldly fire had consumed Dhṛtarāshṭra. Before he entered the forest, the king had performed an ishṭi and let go of his own agnihotra fires there. His priests had left them untended in the empty woods. It was this very sacred fire, which the king himself had kept all his life, that later blazed up as the forest fire (dāvāgni). So Dhṛtarāshṭra died united with the fire he had himself worshipped, and reached the highest state (parama-gati). Kuntī reached great siddhi through her lifelong bhakti in serving her elders.

Yudhishṭhira and the Pāṇḍavas, led by Yuyutsu, then offered udaka-kriyā and tarpaṇa (water offerings) at the Gaṅgā. They sent men to Gaṅgādvāra itself to offer piṇḍa-tarpaṇa at the very place. On the twelfth day they performed a full śrāddha, with generous dāna, for Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Kuntī, each separately, and they gathered the ashes. This closes the Āśramavāsika Parva.

Sources

Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapters 13, 15
Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 1–20, 36–39
Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 1–4, 5–14, 15–18, 19–20, 21–22, 23–24, 25, 37, 38–39