Madri
Madri, also known as Madravati, is a legendary character in the Mahabharata, an ancient Sanskrit epic poem. She is the princess from the Madra Kingdom and becomes the second wife of Pandu, the king of the Kuru Kingdom. She is the mother of the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, the youngest of the five Pandava brothers.
Madri is the daughter of Madraraja—the king of Madra—and sister of Shalya. Her marriage to Pandu is arranged by Bhishma, the grandsire of the Kuru dynasty, in exchange for a heavy bride price. After Pandu is cursed that he would die if he engaged in sexual relations, Madri accompanies Pandu in his self-imposed exile, along with Pandu's first wife, Kunti. Using Kunti's divine boon, Madri invokes the twin gods Ashvins to conceive her twin sons. Later, the cursed Pandu dies when he is overcome by desire and initiates intimacy with Madri. Overcome with remorse and grief, Madri entrusts her sons to Kunti's care and joins him in death.
Madri is traditionally viewed as a pativrata, whose beauty and charm are emphasised in the epic and its later adaptations. Madri's death by self-immolation is often cited as the earliest textual attestation of the sati practice; however, due to conflicting verses in the Mahabharata, it has been the subject of varied interpretations, with some scholars disputing the sati account.
Literary background
Madri appears in the Mahabharata, one of the Sanskrit epics originating from the Indian subcontinent, which primarily narrates about conflict between two groups of cousins—the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Composed in Classical Sanskrit, the text is a composite work shaped over centuries of revisions, editing, and interpolations. The oldest portions of the extant text likely date to around 400 BCE. Manuscripts of the Mahabharata exist in numerous versions, with substantial variations in the details of key characters and events. An exception is the section containing the Bhagavad Gita, which remains notably consistent across different manuscripts. Significant differences exist between the Northern and Southern recensions, with the Southern versions generally being more elaborate and extended. Scholars have undertaken the creation of a critical edition, primarily drawing from the "Bombay", "Poona", "Calcutta", and "South Indian" editions of the text. The most widely accepted version is that compiled by a team led by Vishnu Sukthankar at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, with copies preserved at Kyoto University, Cambridge University, and various institutions across India.Madri's role in the Mahabharata is brief, but significant in advancing the narrative. Her entire life—from her introduction to her death—is recounted in the Adi Parva, the first of eighteen parvas or 'Books' of the Mahabharata. Scholar Alf Hiltebeitel points out that Madri is introduced in verses 105.1–6 of the Adi Parva, as part of a triad of new brides for Kuru dynasty alongside Kunti and Gandhari. In the section spanning from 103.9 to 119.12, Kunti is allotted 195 verses, Gandhari 36 and Madri 85, not counting descriptions of their sons at birth. This allocation not only emphasizes Kunti's rising narrative prominence but also marks the first appearance of conjugal rivalry among co-wives in the epic's generational structure—where Madri soon emerges as Kunti's main rival. Despite her early death in the first book, Madri continues to be mentioned in subsequent parvas.
Name and epithets
Mādrī derives etymologically from Madra, designating the northwestern Indian subcontinental kingdom from which she originates. Thus, Mādrī connotes 'pertaining to Madra' or, within this specific context, 'woman of Madra'. While the epithet is most commonly associated with Pandu's second wife, it has also been applied to other princesses of Madra.Additionally, a cognate epithet, Mādravatī, frequently appears in reference to Madri, though it also denotes the wife of Parikshit in epic literature. Another epithet, Madrarājasutā, meaning 'daughter of the king of Madra', is also used to refer to her. Madri belonged to the Bahlika clan, originating from Balkh in Bactria; as such, she is also called Bāhlikī in few instances in the epic Mahabharata. When Madri is introduced in the epic, she is described as rūpeṇāsadṛśī, literally 'unparalleled in beauty'.
Biography
Madri is mentioned as an incarnation of the goddess Dhriti in the Adi Parva. Madri is mentioned as exceedingly attractive, and sometimes even described being dark complexioned.Marriage
Madri is the daughter of the king of the Madra Kingdom, belonging to the Bahlika clan, and the sister of Shalya. Bhishma, a prominent statesman of the Kuru kingdom and the grandsire of the royal family, travels to Madra to secure Madri's hand in marriage for Pandu, the king of the Kuru Kingdom. The Madra king consents to the marriage, but only in exchange for a bride price as per Madra custom. Bhishma offers him gold, elephants and horses as payment, and subsequently brings Madri to Hastinapura, the capital of Kuru, where she is married to Pandu.Pandu has a first wife, Kunti, with whom Madri shares an amicable relationship, despite an underlying rivalry between the two.
Exile
Shortly after his marriage, Pandu embarks on military conquests. Following these successful campaigns, he goes to tapovana south of Himalayas, accompanied by both his wives, Kunti and Madri. During the expedition in a forest, he observes a deer and a doe in the act of coitus and desiring to hunt them, shoots arrows at them. Upon approaching, he realizes that the deer is, in fact, the sage Kindama, who had assumed the cervine form to enjoy privacy with his wife, who is the doe. As he lies dying, the sage pronounces a curse upon Pandu, decreeing that he dies instantly should he ever attempt to have sexual intercourse. Pandu, Kunti and Madri lament the incident. Disturbed by the gravity of his actions and seeking repentance, Pandu chooses to relinquish his royal duties and wants to live an ascetic life in the forest. However, both Kunti and Madri oppose this, insisting instead on accompanying him as devoted wives and persuading him to adopt the life of an ashrama-dweller—which allows participation of wives—rather than that of a strict ascetic. Pandu agrees and with Kunti and Madri, he departs to the forests. After travelling to various pilgrim sites, they settle in the Shatashringa forests under the care of sages who live there.Birth of Nakula and Sahadeva
During his exile, Pandu, hindered in fulfilling his religious duties due to his lack of an heir, discusses the matter with Kunti, urging her to "raise offspring in this time of distress." He cites twelve types of sons as recognised by religious doctrines, including those born through the practice of niyoga. Kunti discloses her boon from Durvasa to bear a child from any deity, though she initially resists using it. Only after Pandu's fervent pleas does Kunti invoke her boon, resulting in the birth of her three sons—Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna. When Pandu requests Kunti to bear more children, Kunti firmly refuses, stating that doing so would diminish her dignity and reduce her to the status of a prostitute.Madri, in a private moment with Pandu, expresses her sorrow at being childless, despite holding equal status with Kunti. She acknowledges with a sense of consolation that fate had granted her husband an heir through Kunti, but she adds that it would benefit Pandu's lineage, if she could also bear children. Madri concludes that being Kunti's 'rival', she can't approach her directly and requests Pandu to convince her to share the mantra for help in bearing a child. The unabridged recensions of the Mahabharata present a more detailed conversation that further reveals Madri's sense of envy. While expressing her fear of remaining barren, Madri confides in Pandu that, despite considering herself superior to Kunti by birth, she feels overshadowed by Kunti in both Pandu's affections and the dynamics of the household.
Upon Pandu's request, Kunti generously shares the mantra with Madri, who invokes the youthful twin-gods of medicine, collectively known as the Ashvins, to beget Nakula and Sahadeva at once. The Kaunteyas and Madreyas are raised together in the hermitage, and they are collectively referred to as the Pandavas.
After some time, Madri, through Pandu, asks Kunti for the assistance to bear more children. However, Kunti firmly refuses the request, expressing her frustration by noting that Madri had "deceived" her by using a single mantra to gain two sons. She voices her regret, fearing that Madri might end up with more children than herself, and admitted she would have also summoned the Ashvins to obtain twins had she known. Concluding her response, Kunti insists that Pandu not come to her again with requests to share Madri the mantra.
Death
Years laters, during one spring—the season linked with erotism in Hindu tradition—in the forest of Shatashringa, Pandu is deeply influenced by the intensity of the atmosphere. While Pandu walks alone in this setting, Madri—dressed in sheer fabric—follows him. Upon seeing her, Pandu succumbs to desire. In the Southern Edition, this incident occurs on the day of Arjuna's birthday celebration, when Kunti was busy serving guests. Despite Madri's repeated protests, Pandu initiates intimacy with her, forgetting the curse, which forbids him from intimate relations on penalty of death. The curse takes immediate effect; Pandu falls dead in Madri's arms. Upon Pandu's death, Madri cries out in sorrow, summoning Kunti but asking her to come alone, leaving the children behind. Kunti, seeing Pandu and Madri together, blames Madri for the incident, accusing her of having seduced Pandu. Madri, however, defends herself, claiming that she was the one who was seduced. Madri also explains that despite her efforts to resist Pandu's advances, he had been resolute in consummating their union, compelled by the force of fate. Kunti sorrowfully notes that Madri is "fortunate" to see Pandu's face radiant in intimacy—a moment Kunti herself never experiences. Following this, Kunti, as the senior wife, claims the religious duty to accompany Pandu in death, believing it her responsibility to follow him to the afterlife. She asks Madri to relinquish his body and take on the task of raising their children.Madri, however, resists Kunti's request, stating that she feels bound to Pandu by an unfulfilled union, as he approached her in desire at the time of his death. Madri expresses her wish to follow Pandu into the afterlife to fulfill his desire, also fearing she might not be able to raise Kunti's children with equal dedication and affection. She appeals to Kunti to care for her own children, Nakula and Sahadeva, in her absence, trusting in Kunti's ability to provide for them impartially. During Pandu's funeral, Madri jumps into Pandu's burning pyre, thus performing the act of sati. The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata presents a brief exchange between Kunti and Madri, after which it simply states that "the daughter of the king of the Madras, Pandu's revered wife, follows the noble one onto his funeral pyre." In contrast, the Southern Recension offers additional details, describing how the sages and the "foremost Brahmanas" attempt to dissuade both Kunti and Madri from their intent to perform sati. The Southern Edition also adds a dialogue between Madri and Yudhishthira, in which she implores Yudhishthira to take care of his younger brothers like a father.
However, the account of sati is contradicted by the very next stanza, which states that seventeen days after Pandu's death, her dead body and that of her husband are handed over by sages to the Kaurava elders in Hastinapura for the funeral rites. Dhritarashtra, the king of Kuru and Pandu's elder brother, arranges a grand royal funeral for both Pandu and Madri in the capital. As described in detail, corpses of Madri and Pandu are dressed modestly in fine cotton clothes and smeared with sandalwood paste and other sweet scents before being cremated on same funeral pyre.
The Svargarohana Parva mentions that in the afterlife, Madri's soul resides in the heavenly realm of the god Indra.