Śrāddha of Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Kuntī

This is the last chapter of the Āśramavāsika Parva of the Mahābhārata. Yudhishṭhira is still grieving. In his sorrow he had spoken bitterly against Agni, calling him ungrateful (kṛtaghna), because Dhṛtarāshṭra had died in a fire. Nārada now tells him that it was not an ordinary fire that took the king. It was the king’s own sacred agnihotra fire (the daily fire offering).

The chapter then tells how Yudhishṭhira and the Pāṇḍava household, with Yuyutsu at the head of the rites, performed the udaka-kriyā (water offering for the dead), the tarpaṇa (offering of water) and the full śrāddha (rite for the departed) with generous dāna (gifts) for Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Kuntī.

Nārada’s words to Yudhishṭhira

Nārada heard Yudhishṭhira’s pained blame of Agni and answered him directly.

“O one of good vrata! Hear, based on what I myself have learned, that Dhṛtarāshṭra, son of Vicitravīrya, was not in fact consumed by a useless, worthless fire. I shall explain this to you in full.”

Nārada went on. The wise king had given up food and entered the forest. There he performed an ishṭi (a fire ritual) and let his sacred fires go, as it has been told. His priests, the yājakas, left those fires behind in that empty forest and went their own way. That same fire then blazed up and spread with full force through the forest. The whole forest was burned by it, as the tāpasas (ascetics) of that place have themselves said.

Nārada said: “O best of the Bharatas, I tell you exactly how it happened. The king became one with the very fire that was rightly his own.” He told Yudhishṭhira, “O Yudhishṭhira of pure spirit, the mahāṛshis whom I met on the bank of the Gaṅgā told me this matter themselves. So he departed one with the fire he had himself worshipped. He was not consumed by a stranger’s flame. Do not grieve for that king. He has reached the highest goal, parama-gati.”

Nārada added: “Your mother too, through her devotion in serving her elders, reached a very great siddhi (spiritual attainment). In this I have no doubt.”

Nārada then told Yudhishṭhira: “O king of kings, now you, together with all your brothers, must perform the udaka-kriyā for them. Do this.”

The rites at the Gaṅgā

Following Nārada’s advice, Yudhishṭhira set out at once with his brothers and the women of the household. The townspeople and villagers, full of loyalty to their king, wore single garments as a sign of mourning and came together at the Gaṅgā from every side. The men put Yuyutsu at their head, bathed in the water of the Gaṅgā, and offered tarpaṇa to Dhṛtarāshṭra. Tarpaṇa was also offered to Gāndhārī and Kuntī, each by name and gotra (family line). The household kept to the rules of purity and stayed in camp outside the city.

King Yudhishṭhira also sent able and trusted men to Gaṅgādvāra itself, to the very place where the king had burned. He gave them the wealth they needed and told them to perform the piṇḍa-tarpaṇa rites right at that spot.

The śrāddha and dāna

When the days of purity were over, on the twelfth day Dharmarāja performed the śrāddhas for all three, Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Kuntī. He did this according to the rules and with great dakshiṇā (gifts to the priests).

For Dhṛtarāshṭra he gave gold, silver, cows, costly bedsteads and more. For Gāndhārī and Kuntī he made offerings separately, each with its own, giving each the finest dāna. Whatever a person wanted, whether a place to rest, food, a vehicle, jewels or wealth in gems, that person received in the same measure. The king also gave vehicles, clothes, comforts and well-dressed attendants in the names of the two mothers.

After he had performed these many śrāddhas, the king entered Hastināpura. The men he had sent to Gaṅgādvāra gathered the asthis (bones) of Dhṛtarāshṭra, Gāndhārī and Kuntī and came back. Nārada Maharshi comforted Dharmarāja and then went away as he wished.

The close of the parva

Dhṛtarāshṭra spent fifteen years in the city and three years in the forest. For fifteen years after that, Yudhishṭhira gave dānas in the names of all his kin, friends and other relatives who had died in the war. He still grieved in his heart for having destroyed his own kinsmen in that war, and he found no lasting joy in his mind. Even so, he ruled the kingdom faithfully.

Here ends the Nāradāgamana Parva, and with it the Āśramavāsika Parva of the Śrī Mahābhārata.

What the chapter closes

Nārada’s answer shows that Dhṛtarāshṭra’s death in the forest fire came from his own consecrated agnihotra, which received him and joined him at the end with the sacred fire he had kept in his life of tapas. The śrāddha and dāna that followed were led by Yuyutsu, who alone among Dhṛtarāshṭra’s own sons survived the war on the Pāṇḍava side. They bring the Āśramavāsika Parva to its close, and with it the long cycle of mourning after the war that began in the Strī Parva.

The deaths in the forest fire are told in Chapter 37, and this chapter gives the answer to Yudhishṭhira’s grief over them.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapter 39 (Nārada’s words, the rites at the Gaṅgā, the śrāddha and dāna, and the close of the parva)
• Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapter 37 (the forest-fire deaths)
• Mahābhārata, Strī Parva (the beginning of the mourning after the war)