Gandhari

Character Overview

Gandhari is a central royal figure in the Mahabharata: wife of King Dhritarashtra and mother of the Kauravas. She is most remembered for the austere vow to blindfold herself for life so as to share the condition of her husband. A woman of regal bearing and inner discipline, Gandhari devoted herself to dharma, family duties, and austere practice. She embodied both maternal love and stern moral judgment.

Relationship with Krishna

Gandhari knew Krishna intimately as a protector of dharma and as a relative and guest at Hastinapura. She turned to Krishna repeatedly in the hope that he would prevent the fratricidal war. When the war ended with the annihilation of her sons, Gandhari held Krishna morally responsible for allowing the slaughter, because he had the power to avert it but had not done so in a way she expected. In the scriptures their final exchange is heavy with sorrow: Gandhari speaks from the depth of her loss; Krishna accepts the weight of her words and foresees the consequences of her curse. Their relationship is complex—respectful and devotional at times, confrontational and mournful at others—rooted in shared concerns for dharma.

Notable Conversations and Incidents

• The Vow of Blindfolding: At the time of her marriage, Gandhari voluntarily covered her eyes to live as blind like Dhritarashtra. This act was an early and defining statement of devotion and solidarity.
• Appeals to Krishna before Kurukshetra: Gandhari implored Krishna to uphold righteousness and to prevent unrighteousness from prevailing in Hastinapura. She placed faith in Krishna's role as guide and protector of dharma.
• The Lament and the Curse: After the war, overwhelmed by grief, Gandhari pronounced a solemn curse against Krishna and the Yadu lineage for the suffering of her sons. This pronouncement, delivered as a mother's anguished judgment, is recorded in the epic as precipitating the eventual downfall of Krishna's clan.
• Renunciation and Departure: Struck by sorrow, Gandhari took to retirement and ascetic practices in the forest, seeking detachment and spiritual solace after the catastrophe that befell her family.

Interesting Facts and Nuances

• Gandhari's blindfold is both literal and symbolic: it represents loyalty to her husband, the cost of familial duty, and an inner discipline that set her apart among royal women in the epic.
• She combined royal authority with ascetic power; classical accounts attribute to her the strength of tapas (austerity) that gave moral weight to her words.
• Though often seen as the mother of the antagonists (the Kauravas), Gandhari is also a moral commentator in the story—her grief and indictment of wrongdoing force other characters, including Krishna, to confront the human cost of war.
• Her curse on Krishna is not merely vindictive; in the narrative it functions as a cosmic reckoning, showing how personal sorrow and ascetic resolve can influence destiny in the epic imagination.

Legacy and Lessons

Gandhari stands as a figure of complex devotion: a mother whose love was fierce, a queen whose choices carried moral consequences, and an ascetic whose sorrow became prophetic. She teaches the peril of partiality and the depth of maternal grief, while also exemplifying steadfastness, dignity, and the moral power of a vow. Devotional readers see in her both a tragic exemplar and a witness whose lament calls the wider world to account.