Gandhari: An admirable character or not - Page 4

Also, Krishna really did want the curse to work, because there was no other way the Yadavas could have been defeated. Though Gandhari was wrong to curse him, Krishna welcomed the curse freely and even thanked her for it, so that teaches us that nothing is possible without God's will...Krishna could have easily negated the curse, esp since he professed himself to be God unlike Ram, but he did not because it was the easiest way to rid the Earth of the Yadavas after he was gone.

Originally posted by: NandiniPS

Maybe she beat her stomach in the hope that labour will start

I see a nice topic of discussion going on here about a very vital character of Mahabharat!!!

I am not sure if I want to be part of a one to one discussion here. However, I feel that most of the posters have given one sided picture of Gandhari which while true misses another important side of her character. Hence I am tempted to write a post explaining my stance.

I understand that the topic is not about whether Gandhari is a perfectly white person or not but whether she is admirable or not. That she is imperfect is more than obvious and like any other character other than Lord Krishna she has her own flaws and sometimes acted confusedly and sometimes did things that are outright wrong.

Having said the above, saying that she is a sinful character and a min-villain in the epic is simply ludicrous IMO.

The first point of time she is introduced in the epic at least in the serial is when Bhishma says to Satyavathi, "Drit's wife should be have that kind of eyes that to see with them she does not need to use her real physical eyes to see this world". When asked if he had someone in mind he replied, "Yes, the great devotee of Shankara, princess Gandhari". A rating of this nature from a person like Bhishma is a thing to note.

When Bhishma talks about the proposal, Gandhari has accepted it without a complaint. Neither we saw her complaining about it ever after that too. Either if its respect for Bhishma (as she reveals years later in a conversation with Kunti) or fear of him (even in which case it is respect for her father/brothers that she does not want to create a problem for them having to forcibly loose her in a battle with Bhishma), it is quite commendable of a young girl having that kind of maturity to handle such a situation of having to accept a blind person as her husband.

Blinding herself saying that she does not want to see the world that my husband cannot see is another great sacrifice. No wonder Gandhari is always talked about as one of the best "Pativratas" of all time. Yes this is probably a mistake in a way that it prevented her to do right Dekbaal of Duri and ensuring that he stayed on the right path but she may not have anticipated all the events that will come in the very distant future (like Shakuni trying to spoil her son etc.) when she made that sacrifice. It is a mistake comparable to that of Bhishma's sacrifice but not much worse than that IMO.

Yes she was nepotistic and acted in confused manners here and then. Be it feeling bad when she knew Yudhi is born earlier than her son or beating her stomach as quoted by some posters here etc. Nevertheless we see she was quite critical of King Drith for quite a few activities of extreme nepotistic nature.

We see her feeling bad but never display the continuous complaint box kind of attitude that King Drit displays by not missing any opportunity to make statements such as,"Agar mai Netraheen nahi hota", "Mera Bagya me aisi kyon hai"etc.

The way she handled the Draupadi Cheerharan situation is quite noteworthy. Yes she was late and could come only in time to stop a curse from Draupadi but the way she put Duri/Dushasan to shame in the court and the way she ensured king Drit gives back everything immediately is certainly laudable.

Another instance of Gandhari's criticism of Drit comes when King Drit condemns Kunti for not staying at royal palace and Gandhari properly replies him saying that Kunti was perfectly right in what she did.

Finally, it is not debatable that she is a confused character. Love towards her own son and Dharma is always going on in her mind. Like not giving Ashirvaad to Duri prior to the war was right but she contradicts herself by empowering him towards the end!!! Saying to Karna that she wants both Arjun and Duri to live which Karn promptly replies is impossible. Even Kunti for that matter could not decide to loose one between Karn and Arjun. Despite all the wise words from Bhishma on the night before the war, she finally adds, "You are not mother of anyone". Somewhere we get the hint of saying how much difficult is it for a mother to come out of the bond of the motherly love as compared to accepting the most Dharmic thing.

Yes, it was very wrong on her part to curse Lord Krishna. Saying that she is a sinful woman because she did that is equivalent to saying that Yudhi is an Adharmi because he put Draupadi at stake in the dice game IMO. As much wrong the action itself was, one should understand the deep emotional trauma she would have been in at the time after loosing all her biological sons and grandsons seeing all her daugher-in-laws as widows, it is comprehensible as to how even a good person can do something wrong.

Not to forget after all this, she was a great(GREAT) devotee of Lord Shiva!!! something we don't see a lot of other Kshatriya characters in MBH of being so ( I mean great devotees other than say Pandavas or so)!!!

She is no way comparable to Drit or evil quartet as she was never part of any of their conspiracies or plans and always had her opinion against them.

Well I believe I voiced my opinion because I felt the lack of balance in the thread which appears to somehow prosecute Gandhari as a wicked woman with nothing good to talk about or so.

Is she an admirable character overall? My vote will certainly go for her at least in a "weak accept" way!

P.S> If any of you have your disagreement, you are free to express it but if you are too emotional about disagreement I will request you to avoid expressing it as "Visrom" states this is not for a heated exchange of words between people!!!
Edited by esrujan - 12 years ago

Only one point here, she could not have been all bad otherwise her curse would not have been so powerful 

Originally posted by: NandiniPS

Only one point here, she could not have been all bad otherwise her curse would not have been so powerful 

Originally posted by: JanakiRaghunath

 

, Vrish made a good point in his post that as per her curse working, it was mainly because Krishna wanted it to work so that the Yadavas could be eliminated without his having to do anything.