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Hinduism
Panchkanya
Women of
Substance – 24
 It is a patriarchal society’s tradition of
enforced motherlessness that is sought to be challenged at the cost of
being regarded as an aberrant mother. Ashapurna Debi questions the
traditional concept of motherhood which confines woman to the role of a
biological parent with no hand in shaping the future of the girl child.
This is precisely what we notice in the case of the five kanyas.[[1]]
This, again, is where the kanya is distinct from the apsara,
the heavenly hetaerae to whom the maternal instinct is foreign.
Urvashi
makes this amply clear to King Kukutstha when he reproaches her for
deserting their daughter: “O King, my body does not change when
offspring are born and true to my nature as a courtesan, I do not rear
children I give birth to.”[[1]]
The same characteristic is seen in Menaka abandoning her new-born daughter
Shakuntala.
The theme of loss is common to
the kanya. Ahalya has no parents, loses both husband and son and is
a social outcast; Kunti loses her parents and then her husband twice over
(once to Madri and then when he dies in Madri’s arms); Satyavati loses
husband and both royal sons. Seeing her great grandchildren at each
other’s throats, she realises, “the green years of the earth are
gone” (Adi Parva, 128.6) and leaves for the forest so as not to
witness the suicide of her race (ibid. 128.9). Vyasa tells us
nothing of her end. Mandodari loses husband, sons, kinsmen. Tara loses her
husband. Both have to marry their younger brothers-in-law who are
responsible for their husbands’ deaths. Draupadi finds her five husbands
discarding her repeatedly: each takes at least one more wife; she never
gets Arjuna to herself for he marries Ulupi, Chitrangada and has Subhadra
as his favourite; Yudhishthira pledges her like chattel at dice; and,
finally, they leave her to die alone on the roadside like a pauper,
utterly rikta, drained in every sense. In her long poem “Kurukshetra”,
Amreeta Syam conveys the angst of Panchali, born unasked for by her
father, bereft of brothers and sons and her beloved sakha Krishna:
“Draupadi has five husbands
— but she has none —
She had five sons — and was
never a mother…
The Pandavas have given
Draupadi…
No joy, no sense of victory
No honour as wife
No respect as mother —
Only the status of a Queen…
But they have all gone
And I’m left with a lifeless
jewel
And an empty crown…
my baffled motherhood
Wrings its hands and strives
to weep.”[[1]]
Among
the five it is Ahalya who remains unique because of the nature of her
daring and its consequence. She is the only one whose transgression
becomes known and is therefore punished for having done what she wanted
to. Because of her unflinching acceptance of the sentence, Vishvamitra and
Valmiki both glorify her.
–
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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