Pāṇḍu Mṛgaśāpa

The Pāṇḍu Mṛgaśāpa is the account of the śāpa (curse) that Kiṃdama, a great ṛshi (seer), spoke when King Pāṇḍu shot him. The Mahābhārata tells it in the Ādi Parva, Chapter 118. Kiṃdama and his wife had taken the form of deer. Pāṇḍu shot them while they were together, and the dying ṛshi spoke a śāpa: the moment Pāṇḍu came near a woman with the wish for union, he would die. This śāpa ended Pāṇḍu’s life as a king and husband. He took vānaprastha (the life of a forest dweller) with his two wives, Kuntī and Mādrī.

Pāṇḍu’s life before the śāpa

Pāṇḍu had been crowned king of Hastināpura in place of his elder brother Dhṛtarāshṭra, who was blind and so, by custom, not fit for the throne. Pāṇḍu proved himself an outstanding ruler. The text gives him dhṛti (steadiness), sthairya (firmness), sahishṇutā (forbearance), ānṛśaṃsya (freedom from cruelty) and ārjava (straightforwardness). He carried out a brilliant digvijaya (conquest of the directions) and brought great wealth back to Hastināpura.

He had two wives. Kuntī, also called Pṛthā, was a princess adopted by Kuntibhoja. Mādrī was a princess of the Madra kingdom, and Bhīshma arranged her marriage. Pāṇḍu was a king at the height of his power and fame when the hunting trip changed everything.

The shooting of Kiṃdama

Pāṇḍu went into the deep forest to hunt. In a quiet grove he came upon a male deer and a doe mating. Following the kshatriya custom of hunting, he drew his bow and shot both of them with five arrows, the male first and then the female.

As the male deer fell, he took his true form. He was Kiṃdama, a great ṛshi. He had chosen the form of a deer so that he and his wife could know the simple joy that animals know in the forest. He lay dying with Pāṇḍu’s arrows in his body.

The ṛshi spoke with great force in spite of his mortal wound. He told Pāṇḍu that to kill two deer in the most intimate act of life was not the act of a righteous king. It was a wrong. Pāṇḍu had separated two beings at their most helpless moment. Kiṃdama’s wife, shot beside him, was dying with him.

The śāpa

Kiṃdama spoke the śāpa in exact words. Pāṇḍu had broken off the act of union in another being. So Pāṇḍu would die the very moment he came near any woman in the spirit of union. The first stirring of kāma (desire) in his heart, as he faced a woman he wished to hold, would be the moment life left him. He would die as Kiṃdama had died, struck in the act of love.

Then Kiṃdama died, and his wife died beside him.

The talk on vidhi and prajñā

Pāṇḍu sat in the forest, weighed down with grief and blame for himself. He thought long about the link between fate (vidhi) and intelligence (prajñā).

He thought that a wise person knows what is right and what is forbidden. His teachers had taught him, and he had studied dharma. Yet in the moment of the hunt, his understanding had not ruled him. The hunter’s habit had moved faster than his thought. Was this his fate working through his impulse? Is there real freedom in action when deep tendencies move the hand before the mind can judge?

He decided that the śāpa was just. He had wronged two beings at the moment of their closest union. He had no ground to complain.

Pāṇḍu’s choice: vānaprastha

Pāṇḍu went back to Kuntī and Mādrī and told them everything. Then he made a choice that astonished them. He would give up the throne and the kingdom completely and take vānaprastha. He would never return to Hastināpura. He would spend his remaining years in tapas and the practice of dharma in the forests of the Himālaya.

Kuntī and Mādrī both refused to leave him. They chose to go with him into the forest. The three went together to the forests of the Śataśṛṅga mountain. Dhṛtarāshṭra took over the rule of Hastināpura while Pāṇḍu was away.

The śāpa comes true

Years later, on a spring day at Śataśṛṅga, the forest was in bloom and every creature moved in the warmth of the season. Pāṇḍu saw Mādrī alone in the forest. The beauty of the season and the sight of his wife together woke the very desire that Kiṃdama’s śāpa had forbidden. He knew the śāpa, and he tried with all his will, but he was overcome. He went to Mādrī.

At that moment the śāpa struck. Pāṇḍu died in Mādrī’s arms, just as Kiṃdama had died with arrows in his body at the moment of love.

What followed

Pāṇḍu was a fine king, but he had broken the sanctity of life at its most helpless moment, and the result followed exactly. The Mahābhārata shows through him that even great and righteous men are not freed from the results of acts against dharma. This śāpa is the direct cause of the niyoga (the calling of sons through another) by which the five Pāṇḍavas were born. They were the sons who would carry out the purpose of the aṃśāvatāra (partial descent).

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Sambhava Parva, Chapter 118