Kunti and the Nishadin

Posted by Harsh Nevatia Aug 24, 2008

The Mahabharata War was over. Kunti, Gandhari and Dhritarashtra had retired to a forest to pass their last days. There Kunti encounters a Nishadin, a tribal female. The males of the tribe were Nishadas. The topic of conversation veers to the Lakshagrah and the Nishadin asks, “…You had to provide irrefutable proof that the six of you had been burned to death.” That irrefutable proof was the skeletons of a woman and five men found in the remains of the conflagration. The Nishadin reminds Kunti that the Nishadas were regular visitors at the Lakshagrah because they supplied timber. She points out though it was not common for Kunti to invite the Nishadas for meals, Kunti had once invited a Nishadin and her five sons and served them unlimited amount of wine. Then follows a chilling conversation.

Nishadin: And did you serve wine every time?

Kunti: No

Nishadin: Just that one time?

Kunti: Just that one time.

The insinuation is clear and Kunti does not deny it. The Nishadin and her five sons were knowingly and intentionally burned to death by the Pandavas so as to establish their deaths.

Kisari Mohun Ganguli’s translation has this to say. “Desirous of obtaining food, there came, as though impelled by fate, to that feast, in course of her wanderings, a Nishada woman, the mother of five children, accompanied by all her sons. O king, she, and her children, intoxicated with the wine they drank, became incapable. Deprived of consciousness and more dead than alive, she with all her sons lay down in that mansion to sleep.” (Jatugriha Parva)

The Mahabharata seems to indicate that the presence of the Nishadas was accidental. But would Vidur leave such an important piece in his plan to chance? The answer has to be in the negative.