Draupadī
Draupadī was the daughter of King Drupada of Pāñcāla. She is also called Kṛshṇā, Pāñcālī and Yājñasenī. She was born from the sacred fire of a yajña (fire ritual) and became the common wife of the five Pāṇḍavas.
She went through great suffering: the vastraharaṇa (the attempt to strip her) in the Kaurava court, twelve years of forest exile, and the murder of her five sons. Throughout it all she showed both a fierce demand for justice and, at the highest moment, mercy even to the son of her sons’ murderer. In the Bhāgavatam she appears after the Kurukshetra war, shattered by the murder of her sons by Aśvatthāmā, and then she chooses to spare his life. She went with the Pāṇḍavas on their final mahāprasthāna (great departure). At the end, the Mahābhārata reveals that she was Śrī, the devī Lakshmī.
Birth, svayaṃvara and marriage
The Ādi Parva of the Mahābhārata tells her origin and marriage in full. She was born from the fire of Drupada’s great yajña, and her twin brother Dhṛshṭadyumna was born with her. In an earlier birth she was the daughter of a ṛshi who performed hard tapas (austerity). She prayed to Bhagavān Śiva five times for a husband, and received a vara (a boon) of five husbands in her next birth.
At her svayaṃvara (the ceremony where a bride chooses her husband) in Pāñcāla, Arjuna, disguised as a brāhmaṇa, strung the divine bow and shot the fish-target, and so won Draupadī. The five Pāṇḍavas brought her to Kuntī, and Kuntī said, “Share what you have brought today.” So the shared marriage rested on Kuntī’s word.
Vyāsa then revealed the divine origin of this arrangement. The five Pāṇḍavas were the five original Indras gathered into a single birth, and Draupadī was the original Śrī, born again to be their queen. The wedding ceremony lasted five days, with each husband wed in turn.
Later Subhadrā entered Indraprastha in the dress of a gopī (a cowherd woman), bowed before Draupadī and said, “I am your servant.” Draupadī rose, embraced her and blessed her: “May your husband be without enemies.” From this meeting grew a warm and respectful bond.
Draupadī bore one son to each of the five Pāṇḍavas. They are the Upapāṇḍavas: Prativindhya, Sutasoma, Śrutakarma, Śatānīka and Śrutasena. (Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Chapters 168–221)
The dice game and vastraharaṇa
Staked and lost
In the Dyūta Parva of the Sabhā Parva, Yudhishṭhira had lost his wealth, his kingdom, his brothers and himself to Śakuni’s dice. Duryodhana urged him to stake one more possession, Draupadī. Yudhishṭhira staked her, and Śakuni announced the win. Duryodhana sent his sūta (charioteer) Prātikāmī to the inner rooms with an order to bring Draupadī to the assembly. (Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Dyūta Parva and Anudyūta Parva, Chapters 60–81)
The question that silenced the assembly
Draupadī refused to come. She sent back through Prātikāmī the question that stands at the heart of the Dyūta Parva:
“Go and ask the assembly: was I staked before or after my husband had already lost power over himself? If he was already a slave when he staked me, by what right did he stake another person? Let the assembly answer this.”
Prātikāmī carried this question twice to the hall, and each time the assembly fell silent. Bhīshma said the dharma in this matter was too fine for him to decide. Yudhishṭhira sat without speaking. Vidura tried to argue for her, and Duryodhana insulted him as a dāsīputra (son of a maidservant). Vikarṇa alone rose and argued plainly that the staking was not valid on two grounds. Yudhishṭhira had already lost himself before he staked Draupadī. And she was the joint wife of all five brothers, so she was not his alone to stake. Karṇa silenced Vikarṇa’s arguments. (Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Chapters 60–81)
Vastraharaṇa and the help of Kṛshṇa
Prātikāmī came back a second time without Draupadī. Duryodhana lost patience and sent Duḥśāsana to bring her by force. Duḥśāsana went into the inner rooms and seized Draupadī by the hair. She was in her monthly period and wore a single garment. He dragged her into the full assembly. There he tried to strip her in front of every elder, king, teacher and senior of the Kuru line.
Draupadī cried out to all five husbands. She cried out to the assembly, calling on sabhādharma (the duty of those who sit in an assembly). And she cried out to Kṛshṇa:
“O Govinda! O dweller in Dvārakā! O Kṛshṇa, soul of the universe, your Draupadī is being ruined. Are you not the refuge of all who have surrendered to you? Then save me.”
As Duḥśāsana pulled at her garment, it grew longer and multiplied without end. New cloth flowed from the same cloth without a stop, until a mountain of cloth lay in the middle of the assembly and Duḥśāsana fell back exhausted. This was Kṛshṇa’s direct answer to her śaraṇāgati (complete surrender). Bhīma’s voice rang through the hall in rage, with his threat to break Duḥśāsana’s arms and drink his blood. Bhīshma said nothing. The whole assembly watched, frozen. (Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Chapters 60–81)
Varas from Dhṛtarāshṭra
After the vastraharaṇa came a series of terrible omens. Jackals howled, asses brayed in the horse-stalls, and birds cried ill-omened cries. Dhṛtarāshṭra grew afraid. He called Draupadī to him and offered her varas (boons). She asked for two.
- That Yudhishṭhira be freed from his state as a slave, with his chariot and weapons.
- That her four other husbands be freed, with their chariots and weapons.
Dhṛtarāshṭra offered a third vara, and Draupadī refused it. She said: “A kshatriya woman asks for no more than two varas. And my husbands, once freed, free in their own power, will win all else themselves.” The refusal showed her self-reliance and dignity after the shame she had suffered. (Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Chapters 60–81)
Draupadī’s śāpa on the Kaurava wives
When she left Hastināpura, Draupadī laid a śāpa (a curse) on the assembly and on the Kaurava line. The wives of those who had sat silent while she wept in the assembly with loosened hair would themselves weep with loosened hair in the fourteenth year, as she had wept. (Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Chapters 60–81)
Farewell to Kuntī and departure
In the Anudyūta Parva, the Pāṇḍavas prepared to leave after the second dice game, and Draupadī took formal leave of Kuntī. Their talk in Chapter 79 is a deeply moving passage of the Sabhā Parva. The elder woman, who had come through every crisis of the Pāṇḍavas’ lives, counselled the younger woman, who had now faced the greatest shame of all. Kuntī herself stayed at Hastināpura in Vidura’s house and did not go into exile with the Pāṇḍavas.
Draupadī left with her husbands, walking with loosened hair and weeping. Every woman of Hastināpura who saw this grieved and cursed Dhṛtarāshṭra for his lack of foresight. (Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Chapters 60–81)
The forest exile
Draupadī lived through the forest exile with her husbands. Each day she served food from the Akshayapātra, the inexhaustible vessel, so that all were fed before she ate herself.
She held a famous dialogue with Yudhishṭhira on kshamā (patience) and pratāpa (power to act). She challenged his forbearance and argued that the time for firm action had come. Her grief and just anger during the exile were a constant reminder of the wrong done to the Pāṇḍavas, and of the duty of dharma to set it right. (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 1–13)
The saugandhika lotus
The Pāṇḍavas were camped on Gandhamādana, the northern mountain over which Bhīma had carried them at Ghaṭotkaca’s request. A divine saugandhika lotus of rare fragrance was carried by the wind to Draupadī. She was overcome by its beauty and its divine scent. She wished to have more of these divine flowers for their āśrama (hermitage).
Draupadī asked Bhīma to bring more saugandhika lotuses. This request began one of the best-known sequences of the Vana Parva. Bhīma’s journey took him through the banana forests of Gandhamādana. There he met Hanumān, received teaching on yuga-dharma (the duty of each age), and was blessed. He then reached Kubera’s divine lake, fought the yakshas, killed Maṇimanta and received Kubera’s blessing. All this came from Draupadī’s simple wish for flowers. (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 146–155)
Sairandhrī in the Virāṭa Parva
In the thirteenth year of exile, the year of ajñātavāsa (living unrecognised), Draupadī took the disguise of Sairandhrī, a skilled maidservant who knew hairdressing and the art of beauty. She entered the service of Queen Sudeshṇā, the wife of King Virāṭa of Matsya. She set two conditions for Sudeshṇā. She would not eat food that others had left over, and she would not wash anyone’s feet. She said she had Gandharva husbands who would punish anyone who mistreated her. (Mahābhārata, Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 9)
The greatest crisis of that year came from Kīcaka, the commander of Virāṭa’s army and the brother of Sudeshṇā. He became obsessed with desire for Sairandhrī and pursued her without rest. Sudeshṇā sent her to Kīcaka’s house on a pretext. Kīcaka followed her to the royal court and kicked her in full public view.
Draupadī appealed to the courtiers there, and even called on Sūrya to witness the wrong done to her. She then spoke privately to Bhīma. She made the plan by which Bhīma would lie in wait in the nāṭyaśālā (dance hall) and kill Kīcaka. She bore the shame and suffering of the whole episode with great dignity and will. (Mahābhārata, Virāṭa Parva, Chapters 14–24)
In the Uttara Gograhaṇa, Uttara boasted of his courage and needed a charioteer for his battle with the Kauravas. Draupadī, as Sairandhrī, cleverly suggested Bṛhannaḷā as the best charioteer, knowing that Bṛhannaḷā was Arjuna. This is how Arjuna was drawn into the battle that revealed the presence of the Pāṇḍavas and proved their power. (Mahābhārata, Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 37)
Virāṭa returned and struck Yudhishṭhira on the nose with a dice piece, so that blood flowed. Draupadī, present as Sairandhrī, at once caught the blood in a vessel before it could fall to the ground. She knew that a drop of Yudhishṭhira’s blood falling in anger would bring terrible harm to the kingdom. (Mahābhārata, Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 68)
At the marriage of Abhimanyu and Uttarā at Upaplavya, Draupadī was present as herself, with her full royal dignity restored. The women of Matsya were beautifully dressed, but Draupadī outshone them in beauty, fame and splendour. (Mahābhārata, Virāṭa Parva, Chapter 72)
Sauptika Parva: the demand for Aśvatthāmā’s jewel
The messenger’s report
Dawn came after the night of Aśvatthāmā’s massacre. One man survived: the charioteer of Dhṛshṭadyumna, who had hidden himself in the confusion. He rode to Yudhishṭhira’s camp and gave the full account. Yudhishṭhira heard that his five sons, Dhṛshṭadyumna, Uttamaujas, Yudhāmanyu, Śikhaṇḍī and almost the whole Pāñcāla-Sṛñjaya army had been killed in their sleep. He collapsed.
Nakula was sent to bring Draupadī from Upaplavya. She came already knowing grief. When she heard the account, she too fell to the ground. (Mahābhārata, Sauptika Parva, Chapters 10–11)
Draupadī’s demand
Draupadī rose with fierce calm and spoke to the Pāṇḍavas. She said plainly what was at stake. The war was won, but everything that made it worth winning had been destroyed. Her five sons, the heirs of the Pāṇḍava line, were dead.
She then spoke of Aśvatthāmā’s sahaja maṇi (the jewel born with him) on his forehead. Mahādeva had given it to him, and it guarded him from all weapons, disease, hunger and harm from unseen beings. She made her demand clearly:
“You must take that jewel and bring it to me. Without that, I will take prāyopaveśa (a fast unto death) here and now. I will not rise.”
She turned to Bhīmasena and reminded him of every time he had guarded her: Vāraṇāvata, the killing of Hiḍimba, and the death of Kīcaka at Virāṭanagara. “Be that protector again,” she said. “Kill that wicked son of Droṇa as Indra killed Śambara.” (Mahābhārata, Sauptika Parva, Chapter 11)
Her greatness after
Aśvatthāmā’s jewel was brought to her at last, after the meeting at the Bhāgīrathī, Kṛshṇa’s śāpa (curse) on Aśvatthāmā, and Aśvatthāmā’s departure for the forest. Draupadī received it with unexpected calm. She said: “Aśvatthāmā is a teacher’s son, so he stands in the place of a teacher to me too. I asked only for this jewel as a sign of victory and justice, not for his death. Let the mahārāja wear it on his head.”
Yudhishṭhira honoured Draupadī’s greatness of heart, and the fact that this was a guru‘s jewel. He had it set on his own crown, and he shone with it. Draupadī rose slowly from her grief, and with her rising the camp found itself again. (Mahābhārata, Sauptika Parva, Chapter 16)
Draupadī in the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa
Grief over the Upapāṇḍavas
The Bhāgavata tells it this way. Right after the Kurukshetra war, while the Pāṇḍavas slept, Aśvatthāmā entered the Pāṇḍava camp by night. He was consumed by grief and rage over the death of his father Droṇa. He killed the sleeping Upapāṇḍavas, the five sons of Draupadī.
When Draupadī woke and found all five sons dead, her grief had no limit. It was the grief of a mother who had watched the war’s slaughter and had still hoped that her sons would live, and who now found even that hope destroyed.
In this state she appealed to Arjuna: “The son of my guru’s son has done this deed. He is a warrior who killed sleeping children. He must be punished. Unless you bring me justice, I will sit here in hunger and grief and give up my life.” Arjuna took his vow. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 7)
Mercy for Aśvatthāmā
Arjuna captured Aśvatthāmā and brought him to Draupadī, bound, with his hair undone, dragged to the feet of the woman whose sons he had murdered. Then something remarkable happened. Draupadī looked at this man, the son of her guru Droṇācārya, and said:
“Release him. He is a brāhmaṇa. He is the son of our teacher, the one who taught Arjuna everything. If he dies, his mother Kṛpī will weep as I am weeping now. What dharma is there in giving his mother the same grief that I carry? A good woman does not wish on others the suffering she herself has known.”
She agreed that Aśvatthāmā deserved punishment. But she argued that what Arjuna had already done, taking the crest-jewel and shaming him before all, was enough to satisfy honour. Killing him outright would bring only more grief to an innocent mother. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 7)
Her part in Arjuna’s choice
Arjuna had at first made ready to kill Aśvatthāmā, on Kṛshṇa’s counsel that an ātatāyin (one who attacks with deadly intent) deserves death. Draupadī’s words moved him. Yudhishṭhira, Nakula and Sahadeva also agreed with her.
Arjuna chose a middle way. He took Aśvatthāmā’s crest-jewel, shaved his head and drove him out of the camp, without killing him. For a warrior this shame is counted as equal to death. Draupadī’s voice of mercy, spoken from the middle of her grief, shaped the final outcome of the Aśvatthāmā episode. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 7)
Mahāprasthāna in the Bhāgavata
Yudhishṭhira saw that Kali Yuga had come and that Kṛshṇa had left the world. He crowned Parīkshit as emperor, and the Pāṇḍavas gave up the kingdom. Draupadī went with them on the final mahāprasthāna, the great journey to the north taken in renunciation. She walked in silent meditation on the lotus feet of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, and she and the Pāṇḍavas went toward the highest state. The Bhāgavatam records that they reached the state beyond rebirth. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15)
The Strī Parva
In the Strī Parva, Draupadī goes with the Pāṇḍavas to the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The Strī Vilāpa Parva describes the women of the warrior houses, queens, wives, daughters and mothers, weeping over the fallen as they searched across the vast field of the dead. Draupadī appears there as part of the shared grief of the Pāṇḍava side. She had laid a śāpa on the Kaurava wives in her moment of deepest shame, and now she sees it come true. The sight of so much death, even of her enemies, weighs on her with sorrow.
Karṇa’s body was found, and Kuntī revealed her secret: Karṇa was her firstborn son and the eldest of the Pāṇḍavas. Draupadī’s grief grew greater still. All her five sons, the Upapāṇḍavas, had already been killed by Aśvatthāmā in the night massacre. She was a mother without children. The Strī Parva shows her among the other bereaved women, sharing the mourning of Kurukshetra while she bore her own matchless losses. (Mahābhārata, Strī Parva, Chapters 14–15)
Among those who consoled Yudhishṭhira
Kṛshṇa had comforted Yudhishṭhira at length with the Indra-Vṛtra ākhyāna (narrative), the Ātmayuddha and the Kāmagīta. Draupadī is then named among those whose words at last freed the king from his grief. The others were Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa himself, Kṛshṇa Dvaipāyana, Devasthāna, Nārada, Bhīma, Nakula, Draupadī, Sahadeva and the wise Arjuna, with other leading men and brāhmaṇas learned in the śāstras. (Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 14)
Urging the visit to Dhṛtarāshṭra’s āśrama
Sahadeva said that he wished to see Kuntī again. Draupadī spoke up in support before Yudhishṭhira. She said that if Kuntī was still alive, she longed above all to see her while she herself lived. She also praised Yudhishṭhira for the goodness of the resolve forming in his mind.
Her words, together with Sahadeva’s, moved Yudhishṭhira to send the great company to Kurukshetra at once. Draupadī travelled with the women of the household. She was present, with Subhadrā and Uttarā, when Sañjaya formally introduced the whole Pāṇḍava party to the ṛshis at the āśrama of Śatayūpa. (Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 22, 25)
Reunion at the Gaṅgā
Vyāsa gave a great darśana (sacred sight) at the Gaṅgā. Draupadī saw her five sons, who had been killed in Aśvatthāmā’s night massacre, rise from the holy waters restored to youth and splendour. Her father’s people and her brothers rose with them. She met them with great joy for one night, before they went back to their lokas. (Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 32–33)
The great departure and her fall
The Pāṇḍavas gave up the world after Kṛshṇa passed away and the Vṛshṇis were ruined. The glorious Draupadī cast off her ornaments, put on garments of bark and set out with her five husbands on the great departure. She walked last of the six, behind Nakula and Sahadeva. They journeyed east to the sea of Lauhitya, and then north across the Himavat toward Meru.
The travellers pressed swiftly on with their minds fixed in yoga. Draupadī was the first to fall. Her yoga slackened and she sank to the earth. Bhīma asked why one who had done no wrong should fall. Yudhishṭhira answered, without turning back, that she had held too much partiality for Arjuna above her other husbands, and now reaped the fruit of that single fault.
Yet her destination was sure. Indra later told Yudhishṭhira that Draupadī, having cast off her human body, had already reached svarga (heaven). (Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapters 1–3)
Revealed as Śrī
Draupadī had been the first to fall on the mahāprasthāna. On the road of naraka (hell) that Yudhishṭhira saw, her voice was among those that rose from the darkness and called to him. When the illusion was gone and Yudhishṭhira entered the true svarga, he saw Draupadī blazing like the sun. She wore garlands of lotus and lily, and her radiance filled that world.
Indra then told him her true nature. She was Śrī, the devī Lakshmī. She was born of no mortal womb. Bhagavān Śiva, the bearer of the trident, Maheśvara, had made her for the joy of the Pāṇḍavas, and she had taken birth in the line of Drupada for their sake. So the woman whose suffering had turned the wheel of the whole epic was shown to be the very form of divine fortune, returned at the end to her divine glory. (Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapters 2, 4)
Sources
- Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapters 7–8, 15
- Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Chapters 168–221
- Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parva, Dyūta Parva and Anudyūta Parva, Chapters 60–81
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 1–13
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 146–155
- Mahābhārata, Virāṭa Parva, Chapters 1–72
- Mahābhārata, Sauptika Parva, Chapters 11–16
- Mahābhārata, Strī Parva, Chapters 14–15
- Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 14
- Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapters 22, 25, 32–33
- Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapters 1–3
- Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapters 2, 4