Hinduism 
Panchkanya
Women of Substance – 22

According to the Brahmavaivarta Purana (4.116.22-23), she is the reincarnation of the shadow-Sita who, in turn, was Vedavati reborn after molestation at Ravana’s hands, and would become the Lakshmi of the Indras in Svarga. As far back as in 1887 the great Bengali litterateur Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay[[1]] drew an illuminating distinction between Sita and Draupadi, noting that while the former is chiefly a wife in whom the softer feminine qualities are expressed, the latter is pre-eminently a tremendously forceful queen in whom woman’s steel will, pride and brilliant intellect are most evident, a befitting consort indeed of mighty Bhimasena. He also pointed out that Draupadi represents woman’s selflessness in performing all household duties flawlessly but detachedly. In her he sees exemplified the Gita’s prescription for controlling the senses by the higher self.

Since a wife is supposed to present her husband with a son, she gives one to each of the Pandavas, but no more, and in that exemplifies the conquest over the senses, as in the case of Kunti. Once this duty is over, there is no sexual relationship between her and the Pandavas. That is why, despite having five husbands, Draupadi is the acme of chastity. Akin to sakha Krishna, lotus-like she is fully of this world of senses, yet never immersed in it. The bloom of her unique personality spreads its fragrance far and wide, soaring above the worldly mire in which it is rooted.

Ultimately, the fact that Draupadi stands quite apart from her five husbands is brought tellingly home when not one of them— not even Sahadeva of whom she took care with maternal solicitude, nor her favourite Arjuna— tarries by her side when she falls and lies dying on the Himalayan slopes, nathavati anathavat [[1]] (husbanded, yet unprotected). That is when we realise that this remarkable “virgin” never asked anything for herself. Born unwanted, thrust abruptly into a polyandrous marriage, she seems to have had a profound awareness of being an instrument in bringing about the extinction of an effete epoch so that a new age could take birth. And being so aware, Yajnaseni offered up her entire being as a flaming sacrifice in that holocaust of which Krishna was the presiding deity. This feature of transcending the lower self, of becoming an instrument of a higher design is what seems to constitute a common trait in these ever-to-be-remembered maidens. Remembering them daily, learning from them how to sublimate our petty ego to reach the higher self, we transcend sin.

These maidens provide a parallel to the three forms of the ancient Arcadian goddess, Hera: maiden, fulfilled woman and woman of sorrows. Hera, too, would emerge from her bath in the spring Kanathos as virgin anew. As Hera is also her daughter Hebe and Demeter is also Kore-Persephone, so is Satyavati also Kunti and Kunti also Draupadi. Like Demeter-Nemesis and the “awful” Persephone queen of Hades who arouses both admiration and fear, Draupadi is Krishna, the dark goddess, the virgin Vira-Shakti whose cult still exists in south India, a manifestation of the goddess Kali, supping full of horrors on the battlefield at night, the primal uncontrolled, chaotic persona of Prakriti.[[1]]

Draupadi, like the Kore Helen, appears with the skiey announcement that she will be the destruction of warriors. Draupadi, like Demeter and Helen, is always subjected to violence: her svayamvara ends in strife; a fivefold marriage is imposed upon her; she is outraged in the royal court twice over; Jayadratha and Kichaka attempt to rape her; the Upakichakas seek to burn her alive. Like vengeful Demeter Erinys and like Helen, Draupadi seems to attract rape and to wreak vengeance thereafter. Again, like the vengeful Amba, whose suicide in flames represents the inner anguish consuming her, and who takes rebirth to exact blood-price for her outraged femininity by causing Bhishma’s death on the battlefield, Draupadi is also veritably a virgin goddess of war like Artemis and Athene.

– Continued

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