Gāndhārī, Queen of Kṛshṇa

Gāndhārī, simply known as Gandhari, Sanskrit: गान्धारी, Telugu: గాంధారి, Hindi: गांधारी.

Gāndhārī was a beloved queen of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. She lived among his consorts at Dvārakā. When Bhagavān Kṛshṇa cast off his body and went to his supreme abode, and the appointed end of the Vṛshṇis was complete, Gāndhārī entered the funeral fire. She went together with Rukmiṇī, Śaibyā, Haimavatī and Jāmbavatī. In this way she followed her husband, in the sacred act of sahagamana (a wife’s following her husband in death).

Not the wife of Dhṛtarāshṭra

This Gāndhārī is a queen of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa and one of his consorts at Dvārakā. She is not the better-known Gāndhārī, the princess of Gāndhāra. That Gāndhārī was the wife of Dhṛtarāshṭra and the mother of Duryodhana and the hundred Kauravas. The two share only a name. In the Mausala Parva it is Bhagavān Kṛshṇa’s queen Gāndhārī who enters the fire. Dhṛtarāshṭra’s Gāndhārī is remembered in this parva for the śāpa (curse) she had earlier spoken against Bhagavān Kṛshṇa in her grief.

Entry into the fire

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa and Balarāma left the world. Then Arjuna came to the widowed city of Dvārakā to lead away the surviving Vṛshṇi people. The chief queens of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa chose not to live on after him.

Gāndhārī entered the fire together with Rukmiṇī, Śaibyā, Haimavatī and the devī Jāmbavatī. In this way they followed Bhagavān Kṛshṇa to his own realm. The other beloved consorts, led by Satyabhāmā, went instead to the forest to fix their minds on tapas (austerity).

Meaning of her act

Gāndhārī’s entry into the fire is an act of supreme devotion. By it the queen refused to stay in a world emptied of her husband. She reached union with him in his eternal abode. Her choice stands beside that of the wives of Vasudeva, who had earlier mounted his pyre.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 7