IMAGINING INDIA

POWER AND AGENCY IN A MAN’S WORLD

A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF DRAUPADI

NIKHIL SARAF (20130120124)

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CONTENTS

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

Birth and Childhood ......................................................................................................................................... 4

Swayamwar & Marriage ................................................................................................................................... 5

Vastra haran .................................................................................................................................................... 6

Kurukshetra ..................................................................................................................................................... 7

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 8

Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................... 9

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INTRODUCTION

Ahalya draupadi kunti tara mandodari tatha /

panchakanya svaranityam mahapataka nashaka / /

“Ahalya, Draupadi, Kunti, Tara and Madodari-

Remembering ever the virgins five destroys the greatest sins."

As is often the case in Sanskrit literature, the characters— especially women—are subject to the situation in

which they find themselves, though not entirely—if even to any significant degree in part—of their own

making; their choices seem to be restricted to reaction, in terms of the situation thrust upon them. A case for

the defense for each can be made. In this article, I hope to re-examine the traditional stereotypes of women

by throwing light upon the fascinating character of Draupadi and her role in shaping the epic tale of

Mahabharata. The parts she plays and to what extent are these parts shaped by the people around her, her

relationship with men and how she negotiates power, and particularly how she isn’t given enough voice and

agency. All this, bearing in mind that she remains the most indispensable – albeit controversial – figure in the

story. (Blackwell, 1978)

This re-examination is inspired by and mainly derives its content from the interpretation of the Mahabharata

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni that finally lends Draupadi a voice – The Palace of Illusions . This article will

dwell on some of the major events that shape the epic and which have Draupadi at their pivotal center – but

which she did not actively bring about and were in essence thrust upon her. They become interesting studies

because of how she reacts to them and negotiates power within a rigid patriarchal structure. A major thread

in Divakaruni's book is the tale of the unrequited love between Draupadi and Karna, but it is merely a liberty

Chitra Banerjee takes in rendering her own version of the Mahabharata and will have no bearing on the

analysis put forth in this article.

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BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD

Moreover, the princess from Panchala rose up from the middle of the sacrificial

fire. She was beautiful and enchanting; she had a lovely body and a waist the

shape of the sacrificial altar. She was dark, had eyes like lotus leaves, and dark,

wavy hair. She was a goddess who had taken on a human form. Her scent, like

that of a blue lotus, perfumed the air for the distance of a mile. She possessed the

most beautiful figure; none was her equal on earth. (Mahabharata, p. 1.155.10)

In this passage from the Mahabharata, it can be seen how right from the time of her birth it was Draupadi’s

external beauty that came to define her, objectifying her entire being. Focusing on the physical and giving us

a stereotypical description. For someone who was prophesied to reduce the warrior class to ashes and who

would go on to change the course of history, the descriptions at her birth are a reminder that she was still

born in an age and a context where her identity would be defined by men.

However, what set Draupadi apart was that she did not internalise this patriarchy and battled for her rights

within it throughout her life. Even as she was growing up, Draupadi and her brother Drishtadyumna were

given different lessons in accord of her being groomed to become a princess and him a prince, she challenged

this by literally forcing her father King Drupad to let her study with her brother. This was also, brought about

by Krishna who insisted that the prophecy at her birth required her to get an education beyond what women

are usually given. However, her lessons were still regarded with misgivings and people in the family

complained that it’d make her too ‘hardened’, ‘argumentative’ and ‘manlike’ in her speech. (Divakaruni, 2009,

p. 23)

In one of these instances, Dhristadyumna’s tutor declares that, ‘A kshatriya woman’s highest purpose in life is

to support the warriors in her life: her father, brother, husband and sons. If they should be called to war, she

must be happy that they have the opportunity to fulfill a heroic destiny. Instead of praying for their safe

return, she must pray that they die with glory on the battlefield.’ Draupadi counters this, asking, ‘Who decides

that a woman’s highest purpose was to support men?’ asserting, ‘A man, I would wager! Myself, I plan of

doing other things with my life.’ (Divakaruni, 2009, pp. 25-26) It is with each growing day that Draupadi

thought less and less like the women around her and moved away from them in dusky solitude, establishing

early on that if loneliness was the price she would have to pay for sticking by her ideas about fairness, she

would pay it.

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SWAYAMWAR & MARRIAGE

Sita and Draupadi both were given to heroes who won them through feats of

strength. Their marriages still are traditionally termed svayamvaras though

technically they are not. The svayaMyara, "self-choice," most frequently in the

Dharmagastras is considered a type of gandharva marriage or a marriage by

mutual consent without parental approval or benefit of clergy. How-ever, the

svayamvaras of Sita and Draupad! are rather marriages approved by parents and

officiated over by brah-mans. (Sutherland, 1989)

Draupadi’s husband was to be selected after a swayamwar – though not the righteous one where the bride

selects the groom but one where the groom is selected on the basis of a test prescribed by her father. Forget

getting to choose her husband, Draupadi had no say whatsoever in whether she wanted to have a marriage in

the first place. Her fate was thrust upon her.

However, when the time came to select the winner and it seemed inevitable that Karna would win the

contest, contrary to what Dhristadyumna, Krishna and Draupadi herself wanted; she exercised her right and

spoke up at the most opportune moment saving herself and her family from the agony that might have

ensued. This probably can be recognized as one moment where the course of history balanced between good

and ill. Draupadi, exclaimed that before Karna tries to win her hand, he should tell her his father’s name for

she believed that a wife-to-be who would be severing herself from her family and attaching herself to her

husband’s line had the right to know this.

It was ultimately Arjuna who won the contest disguised as a Brahmin. But calamity befell as the prophecy

came true and she was to be shared by all the five Pandavas. This went against her true nature as she couldn’t

fathom the fact that her husband wouldn’t stand up for her. It made her ‘angry’ and ‘helpless’ but she finally

had the freedom that men had had for centuries. (Divakaruni, 2009, p. 120) Furthermore, the virginity boon

granted to her (Each time she went to a new brother, she’d be a virgin again) seemed to benefit the husbands

more than her. For she herself, if given a chance would have requested the gift of forgetting so that when she

went to each brother, she’d be free of the memory of the previous one. Important here is the place virgins

enjoy in a male dominated society and how being a virgin is considered a mark of purity. The misery doesn’t

end there, Arjuna ends up blaming Draupadi for the entire situation of her being shared with all the five

Pandavas, which is so very typical of the patriarchal society wherein the entire web of events could have been

avoided just by Arjuna shrugging off his mother’s comment as a passing statement.

The Pandavas went on take other wives which was in contradiction to what Draupadi had believed when she

said that, ‘My husband won’t take another wife – I’ll make him promise that before I marry him.’ (Divakaruni,

2009, p. 30) Again, here we see that she wasn’t left with much of choice when the actual time came and she

was married in haste.

In the long term, it is observed that she negotiates power very well even within this marriage arrangement

that she didn’t approve of. She manages to stay the queen of the household even after her husband’s take on

other wives, oftentimes not so subtle with her jealousy. Plus, she is successful in getting men to act for her

whenever she wanted. In particular, the case of Bheem, where we see her admitting to the fact that, ‘My

regret lies more in this: recognizing Bheem’s weakness, I took advantage of it. I wept more loudly when he

was around … I took love and used it as a balm to soothe my ego.’ (Divakaruni, 2009, p. 213) In doing so, can

we say that Draupadi had actually committed a sin? Especially when she had practically been forced to

comply with everything that had happened till now, couldn’t we allow her this much?

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VASTRA HARAN

Then, king, Duhsasana forcibly took hold of Draupadi's garment and began to take

it off. But, lord of men, just as Draupadi's garment was being pulled off, other

garments, one following the other, of the same type appeared! All those kings,

observing that miracle on earth, let forth a loud, terrifying sound of "hala hala."

And there Bhima-striking his hands together in a rage-swore in a loud voice in the

midst of the kings, his lips trembling:" Keep in mind these words of mine, you

Ksatriyas ho inhabit he earth what I say has never before been said, and none will

say it again. If I do not carry out my vow, lords of the earth, then let me not obtain

the worlds of all our grandfathers-if I, in battle, do not violently split open the

chest and drink the blood of this low-born sinner, this most despicable amongst

the Bharatas!" (Mahabharata, pp. 2.61.40-46)

This event can be termed as the turning point of Mahabharata. If the epic had to be divided into two parts,

this would have been the reference point, events that occurred before the vastra haran and those that took

place after. Here again, we see an event thrust upon Draupadi, where she had no role to play.

However, it’s important to take note of the questions and arguments that Draupadi puts forth when she’s lost

in a wager by Yudhisthir to Duryodhana. These aren’t illogical, infact important arguments that take into

account the universal laws and how and if they can be manipulated. Some of them are, ‘I am a queen.

Daughter of Drupad, sister of Dhristadyumna, mistress of the greatest palace on earth. I can’t be gambled

away like a bag of coins, or summoned to court like a dancing girl.’ ; ‘The wife is the property of the husband,

no less so than a cow or a slave.’ ; ‘If perchance a man lost himself, he no longer had any jurisdiction over his

wife.’ (Divakaruni, 2009, p. 190) Thus she demands answers not out of pride but out of sheer legal bindings.

However, even Bheesma didn’t have the answers because later on in the epic when questioned as to why

didn’t he stop the vastra haran when he had the chance to do so, he fumbles saying that he wasn’t sure of the

fact that she was Duryodhana’s property or not, cause if she was then the entire act according to him was

justified.

Draupadi, after the incident, goes on to curse the Kauravas saying, ‘All of you will die in a battle that will be

spawned from this day’s work. Your mothers and wives will weep far more piteously than I’ve wept. The entire

kingdom will become a charnel house. Not one Kaurava heir will be left to offer prayers for the dead. All that

will remain is the shameful memory of today, what you tried to do to a defenseless woman.’ (Divakaruni,

2009, p. 194)

There are two important points that must be highlighted in view of this incident. Firstly, Draupadi’s belief that

because her husbands loved her, they would do anything for her. However, she was proven wrong - their

notions of honor, loyalty towards each other, and of reputation were more important to them than her

suffering. Secondly, her notion that a woman’s heart is purer was challenged because when the time came,

she couldn’t help but curse the Kauravas in the way that she did with vengeance encoded in her blood.

Thus she manages to hold her own even in this situation, spelling a curse that would wash out an entire clan

and asking questions to which even the gods didn’t have an answer.

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KURUKSHETRA

Draupadi’s tale gets a fitting end when she becomes the only women ever to witness the grand spectacle that

was the battle of Kurukshetra. This was due to the gift offered to her by sage Vyasa who presented her with a

special vision so that she could see the most important parts of the war from afar and she accepted it saying

that it was only just, since she’d helped bring it about. (Divakaruni, 2009, pp. 254-259) Thus, Draupadi could

not only see the war but focus on the main parts and more importantly feel what the actors were feeling when

they went through the heinous war acts.

Such power had not been wielded by any other in the history of woman kind, essentially making Draupadi the

first woman ever to have such an absolute grip over the happenings of the war. It was befitting that Draupadi

get to exercise such power after she had been time and again involved in events that shouldn’t have had

anything to do with her.

Later on, when the war had been won, we even see her addressing the women as as queen might her subjects

but not manipulating them or tugging at their hearts as a master musician does his lute strings but being just

and honest in her tone, more like a mother among mothers. (Divakaruni, 2009, pp. 313-314)

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CONCLUSION

Like most instances, the uniqueness of Draupadi's character is best highlighted not while pitting her against

the male characters within her life, but when compared to the other great heroine in Sanskrit epics – Sita from

the Ramayana.

A recent survey taken of one thousand young Indian men and women in the North Indian state of Uttar

Pradesh revealed that from a list of twenty-four goddesses, literary heroines, and famous women of history,

an overwhelming percentage chose for their ideal female role model Sita, the heroine of Ramayana.' That a

fictional character would still, after more than two thousand years, exert such a fascination on the lives of

men and women in the Indian sub-continent is an extraordinary occurrence and one that deserves some

attention. (Sutherland, 1989)

On the one hand Draupadi is seen as being vengeful, too independent, dominant, aggressive and outspoken.

Further Draupadi had five husbands, a situation granting her considerable amount of power and

independence and while not really a temptress, she is a temptation to many men. On the other hand, Sita

maintains throughout most of her ordeals a submissive acquiescence to the whims of her often cruel husband,

faces abuse and abandonment at the hands of Rama, is subjected to cruel rejection and must prove her

fidelity by entering the fire.

That Sita is then regarded as the ideal woman is a direct reflection of a society that seems to believe that a

woman's place is at her husband's feet – if not literally, then at least metaphorically. The concept of Draupadi

negotiating power in a man's world seems to so deeply rattle the status quo in a patriarchal society that she

has come to be associated with all that goes wrong when a woman is afforded too much independence –

promiscuity, greed, forthrightness. That the same morality carries over into the 21st

century is an indictment

of the supposed modernity that we have moved towards. It is when archaic notions of a woman's place in

society are finally replaced by ones that celebrate Draupadi and her firebrand ideas of equality that we can

finally claim to have broken free of the shackles of the past. What remains ironic is that we need a heroine

several millennia old to remind us of this.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blackwell, F. (1978). In Defence of Kaikeyi and Draupadi: A note. Indian Literature , 21 (3), 138-145.

Divakaruni, C. B. (2009). The Palace of Illusions. Picador.

The Mahabharata.

Sutherland, S. J. (1989). Sītā and Draupadī: Aggressive Behavior and Female Role Models in the Sanskrit

Epics. Journal of the American Oriental Society , 63-79.