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Hinduism
Panchkanya
Women of
Substance – 16
To secure the safety of her
sons she takes the conscious decision to undergo the trauma of
acknowledging her shame to her first-born, kept secret so long. Not
knowing that Krishna has already failed after approaching Karna with the
same secret, baiting his offer with the prospect of Draupadi becoming his
wife,
“The Vrishni lady, the Kaurava wife
waited;
she wilted in the sun’s heat like
a faded lotus garland.
She sheltered in the shade of Karna’s dress.” (Udyoga
144.29 ibid.)
Though she is rejected by
Karna, in that apparent failure lies Kunti’s victory. For, she obtains
his promise not to kill any Pandava but Arjuna. Moreover, she effectively
weakens him from within. While he knows that he is battling his mother’s
sons, they are only aware that he is the detestable charioteer’s son who
must be slain for his crimes against Draupadi and Abhimanyu.
Kunti has that rare capacity
to surprise us which distinguishes the kanya. When all that she had
worked for has been achieved, she astonishes everyone by retiring to the
forest with, of all persons, Dhritarashtra and Gandhari, to spend her last
days serving those who were responsible for her sufferings. Kunti’s
reply to her bewildered sons’ anguished questions is that she had
inspired them to fight so that they did not suffer oppression, and that
having glutted herself with joy during her husband’s rule, she has no
wish to enjoy a kingdom won by her sons. How effortlessly she transcends
the symbiotic bonds of maternity! Seated calmly, she accepts death as a
forest fire engulfs her. It is profoundly significant that the epic
declares her to be the incarnation of siddhi, fulfilment. She is
indeed the consummation of womanhood and the archetype of the modern
phenomenon which is of such concern all over the world today: the Single
Mother.
Kunti is the pre-eminent
example in our mythology of the kanya. An integrated personality,
with her libido under control, she has not more than one son from each of
the four relationships and does not take advantage of Pandu’s hankering
to enter into sexual alliance with more men[[1]]. Making her own way in
a hostile world, she establishes her sons and ultimately sublimates the
ego. Finally, she transcends the self to give up her life reconciled, made
whole, calm of mind, all passion spent.
Even more than Satyavati,
Kunti is a “virgin” in the Jungian sense. Originally, this word
connoted precisely the opposite of what it has come to mean. Ishtar and
Aphrodite, the goddesses of love in ancient Mesopotamia and Greece, were
called virgins. The later patriarchal cultures denounced them as immoral
and wanton. The boon of virginity is not just a physical condition but
refers to an inner state of the psyche which remains untrammelled by any
slavish dependence on another, on a particular man. She is
“one-in-herself”, an integrated personality who “belongs to herself
while she is virgin-unwed and may not be compelled either to maintain
chastity or to yield to an unwanted embrace… This liberty of action
involves the right to refuse intimacies as well as to accept them… It
may be used of a woman who has had much sexual experience; it may be even
applied to a prostitute. Its real significance is to be found in its use
as contrasted with ‘married.’ ”[[1]]
–
Continued
Panchkanya Pages : 1 |
2 | 3 | 4
| 5 | 6 | 7 |
8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 |
14 | 15
16 | 17 | 18 |
19 | 20 | 21 |
22 | 23 | 24 |
25 | 26 | 27
Now also in Hindi at
http://www.hindinest.com/visheshank/01stri/panchkanya1.htm
Now also in French at http://www.neurom.ch/mbh/kanya.pdf
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