Originally posted by .Vrish.Uloopi didn't raise him in place of Chitrangada. She just decided that since Arjun didn't love her, but did love Chitrangada, she just decided to spend her time w/ her, and helped her in raising Babruvahana. I'm actually using the ACK here - something curious about it is that there is no mention of her raising Iravana as well, although one would think that that is implied, and that both Iravana & Babruvahana were raised in Manipur by Uloopi & Chitrangada.
After the battle b/w Arjun & Babruvahana, which the latter won, he was invited to attend the Ashwamedha yagna, and brought both Uloopi & Chitrangada along. This time, when Babruvahana left Hastinapur after the yagna, Uloopi & Chitrangada stayed on in Hastinapur. When the Pandavas finally decided to retire and leave their kingdom to Parikshit, the Pandava womenfolk other than Draupadi stayed on w/ him, but Chitrangada returned to Manipur to join Babruvahana, while Uloopi entered her watery kingdom. It's unclear whether that means she drowned herself, or that she simply returned to the place where she originally met Arjun. This was in sharp contrast to Krishna's womenfolk - a lot of whom committed agni-samadhi after Arjun took them to Indraprastha, or took vanvas.
One thing I've wondered - and I did mention it in some of the previous pages, but maybe Vibs, or you, or anyone else reading this can answer. When the Pandavas went into exile, their wives (except Draupadi) went to their maayka kingdoms to raise their children. However, when the Pandavas finally retired, then why didn't all their wives accompany them? Devika, Paulomi, Valandhara, Hidimba, Subhadra, Uloopi, Chitrangada, Karenamati and Vijaya - they didn't have anything left, so why didn't they simply accompany their husbands and Draupadi, leaving Uttara w/ Parikshit? (On Subhadra, I've seen 2 different accounts - one says that she stayed behind w/ Parikshit, Uttara and the other Pandava womenfolk, while another account says that after Arjun crowned Anirudha's son Vajra as the ruler of the Vrishnis, he left Subhadra as his regent/guardian.) I know everybody's milages vary, but one would have thought that they'd have preferred to be w/ their husbands.
I remember that when reading a translation of the MB, Uloopi forced Arjun to marry him, so he never loved her as a reason of that? And Uloopi and Chitrangada came to live with the Pandavas after the MB war?
I guess Uloopi returning to her watery Kingdom meant she returned to her maayka, because she was a Naag Kanya and I don't think drowning herself was an option for suicide, since she technically couldn't drown?
I've also wondered about your question...why did only Draupadi accompany the Pandavas? I have a theory in mind which I don't know is correct or not, but I guess it wouldn't hurt sharing it with you all. The Pandavas are all said to be the incarnations of the Gods who fathered them...like Yudhisthira is an incarnation of Dharmaraj, Bhima an incarnation of Vayu Dev, etc, and Draupadi is said to be an incarnation of Kali Devi. Some say she was an incarnation of Sachi (the wife of Indra) while others say she's an incarnation of Lakshmi, though I don't really buy that since she would have married Krishna had she been Lakshmi, right? Anyway, more sources say Draupadi was an incarnation of Kali and that's why she was always filled with so much anger and thirst for revenge at the Kauravas, and if that's true, then the Pandavas' and Draupadi's yatra may have been equivalent to Shri Ram's Mahaprayaan...returning to their divine abode. However, Shri Ram did take Bharat and Shatrughan with him, as well as all the vanar sena minus Hanuman, Angad, and Jambavanth, so the Pandavas could have taken the rest of their womenfolk, but then again, the vanar sena were also all incanrations of Gods, so it makes sense for them to return to their divine abodes as well, and both Bharat and Shatrughan were parts of Vishnu himself, so they too could not have remained on Earth without Ram.
Being normal women, I guess the other womenfolk of the Pandavas remained behind because they had no divine abode to return to.
Sorry if this theory sounds silly, but that's what I've always thought.
JanakiRaghunath
