Parva 11

Stri Parva

No fighting in this book — only the women walking the field afterward

The iron figure

After the war the Pandavas went to Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra said he wished to embrace Bhima. Krishna knew what this meant, a hundred sons had been killed, and it was Bhima who had killed both Duhshasana and Duryodhana, and whatever strength remained in an old blind man's arms was enough to crush someone. He pulled Bhima back and put an iron statue in his place. Dhritarashtra wrapped his arms around it and crushed it. The statue shattered, its pieces scattering on the ground. Then he began to weep. He said he had killed Bhima. Krishna told him it had not been Bhima. Dhritarashtra fell silent, ashamed, and relieved at once.

Vidura's parable

Vidura told Dhritarashtra a parable. A man, fleeing through a forest, fell into a well. Halfway down he caught hold of a vine and hung there. Below him were snakes. Above, an elephant was shaking the vine. Two mice gnawed at the same vine, taking turns. And above it all, drops of honey fell from a hive. The man hung there with his mouth open for those drops, death below, death above, and in between he waited only for that one sweet drop. Vidura said this was the condition of every man, and this was why he could look straight at something and still not see it.

The field

Then the women came onto the field. Much of this parva is exactly this, no battle, only mothers, wives, and sisters wandering the field trying to recognize their own among the bodies. One sits by her son. Another by her husband. Another simply stands, because there is nothing left to recognize. The text names them here, and leaves no one out.

Uttara sits beside Abhimanyu, the same girl married at the end of the Virata Parva, now a pregnant widow. Karna's wives are there. Duhshasana's. Jayadratha's. And it is not a hundred mothers, it is one mother, Gandhari, whose hundred sons lie on this same field. She had kept her eyes bound her whole life, because her husband could not see, and she did not want to see what he could not. Today she did not remove the blindfold. Vyasa granted her sight, and without lifting it she saw everything anyway, her hundred sons, one by one.

Gandhari's curse

Gandhari turned toward Krishna. She said he could have stopped this, he had the power, and he had not stopped it. Then she cursed him, that just as her own line had destroyed itself fighting among its own, Krishna's line too would destroy itself the same way, and he would die alone. Krishna accepted the curse without a word in his own defense. Thirty-six years later, it came to pass.

Kunti's truth

At the end, everyone offered water for the dead. Then Kunti told Yudhishthira to offer water for Karna too. Yudhishthira asked why, he had been the enemy. Then Kunti told him what she had hidden from her five sons until the war was over, that Karna had been her son, older than all five brothers. Yudhishthira listened, stunned. Then he cursed his own mother, that from that day no woman would ever again be able to keep a secret hidden.

It is the heaviest moment in the entire war, and it comes only after the war is over, when nothing remained that could still be changed.

Note: The iron figure, Vidura's parable of the well, Gandhari's curse, Kunti's truth and Yudhishthira's answer are all in the Stri Parva of Vyasa's Mahabharata. There is no fighting in this book — it is entirely on the grief of those left after the war, and the effect of it here is that a reader still hoping for a victory is brought up short.

Source: Mahabharata (ascribed by tradition to Vyasa), Stri Parva

Now — how much stayed with you?

What happened?

After the war Dhritarashtra wanted to embrace Bhima. What happened then?

Bhima refused
He embraced Bhima and forgave him
Krishna pulled Bhima back and put an iron figure forward, which Dhritarashtra crushed and broke
He attacked and Bhima got away

Read the whole story — The strength that was still there

Dhritarashtra was blind, old, and had lost a hundred sons. But the strength in him was still extraordinary.

The iron figure broke in his hands, and blood ran from his own body.

Afterwards he wept — he thought he had killed Bhima. So the intent was real.

Krishna told him Bhima was alive, and also said the root of that rage was his attachment to his sons, which he had been warned about repeatedly before the war.

Why is that?

Why did Krishna put an iron figure in Bhima's place?

Because he knew Dhritarashtra would want to kill Bhima, over Duhshasana and Duryodhana
Because Bhima was afraid
Because Dhritarashtra had asked for it
Because it was the custom

Read the whole story — The man who kept both vows

It was Bhima who killed Duhshasana and Bhima who broke Duryodhana's thigh.

Dhritarashtra kept the language of reconciliation on the surface, and Krishna did not trust it.

What happened after the figure broke proved Krishna right — the grip was enough to break iron.

And even so the text does not make Dhritarashtra a villain. His weeping is part of the same moment.

Riddle

I am a parable. A man hangs in a well, a python below, an elephant above, two mice gnawing his creeper — and he is licking drops of honey. Who told this?

Krishna
Vyasa
Gandhari
Vidura, to Dhritarashtra

Read the whole story — The drops of honey

Vidura gave the meaning of each thing too — the forest is the world, the well the body, the python death, the elephant the year, and the two mice day and night.

The honey is that little pleasure for which a man forgets everything else, even knowing the creeper is being cut.

Vidura tells this as consolation, and nowhere in it does he say the grief will pass.

Consider the situation: a blind old man who has lost a hundred sons, being told this by his brother. The consolation is not that things will be all right.

Who said it?

"Thirty-six years from now your own people will fight among themselves and end, and you will die alone in a forest." — who said this, and to whom?

Kunti to Krishna
Gandhari to Krishna
Draupadi to Krishna
Dhritarashtra to Yudhishthira

Read the whole story — The woman who saw the whole field

Gandhari had kept her eyes bound her whole life. Vyasa gave her the sight to see the battlefield.

She counted the bodies one by one, and the women sitting beside them.

Then she told Krishna that both sides listened to him, and he had not stopped the war.

Krishna did not cut the curse away. He said the destruction of the Yadavas was already fated. It is fulfilled in the Mausala Parva.

Whose son?

At the offering of water Kunti told a truth, and Yudhishthira broke. What was the truth?

That Karna was her son, older than all five brothers
That Yudhishthira is the son of Dharma
That Vidura was their father
That Duryodhana was her son

Read the whole story — Told too late

Karna had been told this truth before the war began — first by Krishna, then by Kunti herself.

But Yudhishthira learned it only now, when Karna was dead and the man who killed him was his own brother.

He cried out asking why he had not been told before, and then in anger cursed all women that they would not be able to keep anything hidden for long. The text presents this as Yudhishthira's curse, not as a general rule.

After that he gave water for Karna. It is the first moment Yudhishthira offers water for Karna as an elder brother — and by then he is not alive.

Fact

By Gandhari's curse, in how many years would Krishna's people be destroyed?

Eighteen years
A hundred years
Thirteen years
Thirty-six years

Read the whole story — A count still running

The Mahabharata's numbers stay tied to each other — eighteen parvas, eighteen chapters, eighteen akshauhinis, eighteen days.

Thirty-six is twice that eighteen, and it is the one large count left over after the war.

In those thirty-six years the Pandavas rule Hastinapura. The story goes quiet, but the curse keeps running.

In the Mausala Parva the Yadavas fight among themselves and end, and Krishna is killed alone in a forest — exactly as Gandhari said.

Put it in order

Which is the right order of these events in the Stri Parva?

Gandhari's curse → the iron figure → Kunti's truth → Vidura's parable
The iron figure → Vidura's parable → Gandhari's curse → Kunti's truth
The iron figure → Gandhari's curse → Vidura's parable → Kunti's truth
Vidura's parable → the iron figure → Kunti's truth → Gandhari's curse

Read the whole story — A parva in which nobody fights

Not one weapon is raised in the Stri Parva. The whole parva is walking the field, recognising bodies, and giving water.

It is among the very few stretches where the Mahabharata looks at the war not through the winners but through the women left behind.

The one doing the counting is a woman too, and she is the one who curses. The heaviest sentences in the book are in this parva.

After it the book turns completely — next is the Shanti Parva, where Bhishma, lying on the arrows, gives Yudhishthira a long teaching on kingship, duty in extremity, and the other questions of living.