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The tragic and heroic figure of Queen Kunti emerges from an explosive era in the history of ancient India. As related in the Mahabharata, India's grand epic poem of 110,000 couplets, Kunti was the wife of King Panḍu and the mother of five illustrious sons known as the Panḍavas. As such, she was one of the central figures in a complex political drama that culminated fifty centuries ago in the Kuruksetra War, a devastating war of ascendancy that changed the course of world events. The Mahabharata describes the prelude to the holocaust as follows:

Panḍu became king because his elder brother Dhrtarastra had been born blind, a condition that excluded him from direct succession. Some time after Panḍu ascended to the throne, Dhrtarastra married Gandhari and fathered one hundred sons. This was the ruling family of the Kaurava dynasty, of whom the eldest was the ambitious and cruel Duryodhana.

Meanwhile, Panḍu had taken two wives, Madri and Kunti. Originally named Prtha, Kunti was the daughter of Sūrasena, the chief of the glorious Yadu dynasty. The Mahabharata relates that Kunti "was gifted with beauty and character; she rejoiced in the law [dharma] and was great in her vows." She also possessed an unusual benediction. When she was a child, her father Sūrasena had given her in adoption to his childless cousin and close friend Kuntibhoja (hence the name "Kunti"). In her stepfather's house, Kunti's duty was to look after the welfare of guests. One day the powerful sage and mystic Durvasa came there and was pleased by Kunti's selfless service. Foreseeing that she would have difficulty conceiving sons, Durvasa gave her the benediction that she could invoke any demigod and by him obtain progeny.

After Kunti married Panḍu, he was placed under a curse that prevented him from begetting children. So he renounced the throne and retired with his wives to the forest. There Kunti's special benediction enabled her to conceive (at her husband's request) three glorious sons. First she invoked Dharma, the demigod of religion. After worshiping him and repeating an invocation Durvasa had taught her, she united with Dharma and, in time, gave birth to a boy. As soon as the child was born, a voice with no visible source said, "This child will be called Yudhisthira, and he will be very virtuous. He will be splendid, determined, renounced, and famous throughout the three worlds."

Having been blessed with this virtuous son, Panḍu then asked Kunti for a son of great physical strength. Thus Kunti invoked Vayu, the demigod of the wind, who begot the mighty Bhima. Upon Bhima's birth the supernatural voice said, "This child will be the foremost of all strong men."

Thereafter Panḍu consulted with great sages in the forest and then asked Kunti to observe vows of austerity for one full year. At the end of this period Panḍu said to Kunti, "O beautiful one, Indra, the King of heaven, is pleased with you, so invoke him and conceive a son." Kunti then invoked Indra, who came to her and begot Arjuna. As soon as the prince was born, the same celestial voice boomed through the sky: "O Kunti, this child will be as strong as Kartavirya and Sibi [two powerful kings of Vedic times] and as invincible in battle as Indra himself. He will spread your fame everywhere and acquire many divine weapons." Subsequently, Panḍu's junior wife Madri bore two sons named Nakula and Sahadeva. These five sons of Panḍu (Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva) then came to be known as the Panḍavas.

Now, since Panḍu had retired from the throne and gone to the forest, Dhrtarastra had temporarily assumed the throne until Panḍu's eldest son Yudhisthira came of age. However, long before that time Panḍu died as a result of the curse, and Madri gave up her life as well by ascending his funeral pyre. That left the five Panḍavas in the care of Queen Kunti.

After Panḍu's death, the sages living in the forest brought the five young princes and Kunti to the Kaurava court at Hastinapura (near present-day Delhi). In Hastinapura, the capital city of the kingdom, the five boys were raised in royal style under the guidance of Dhrtarastra and the noble Vidura, Panḍu's half brother.

But a smooth transfer of power was not to be. Although Dhrtarastra had at first recognized the primogeniture of Yudhisthira, he later allowed himself to be used by his eldest son, the power-hungry Duryodhana, who wished to ascend the throne in place of Yudhisthira. Driven by uncontrollable jealousy, Duryodhana plotted against the Panḍavas, and with the hesitant approval of the weak Dhrtarastra, he inflicted many sufferings upon them. He made several attempts on their lives in Hastinapura, and then he brought them to a provincial palace and tried to assassinate them by having it set on fire. All the while, the five youthful Panḍavas were accompanied by their courageous mother Kunti, who suffered Duryodhana's atrocities in the company of her beloved sons.

Miraculously, however, Kunti and the Panḍavas repeatedly escaped death, for they were under the loving protection of Lord Krsna, who had incarnated to perform His earthly pastimes. Ultimately Duryodhana, a clever politician, cheated the Panḍavas out of their kingdom (and their freedom) in a gambling match. As a result of the match, the Panḍavas, wife Draupadi was abused by the Kauravas, and the Panḍavas themselves were forced to spend thirteen years in exile in the forest-to the great sorrow of Kunti.

When the thirteen-year exile had ended, the Panḍavas returned to Hastinapura to reclaim their kingdom. But Duryodhana bluntly refused to relinquish it. Then, after some unsuccessful attempts to quell the hostilities, Yudhisthira sent Krsna Himself to secure the return of the Panḍava kingdom by peaceful means. But even this effort failed-because of Duryodhana's obstinacy-and both sides prepared for battle. To place Yudhisthira on the throne-or to oppose him-great warriors from all corners of the earth assembled, setting the scene for what would prove to be a devastating world war.

Fierce fighting raged for eighteen days on the historic plain of Kuruksetra (near Hastinapura), and in the end all but a handful of the many millions of warriors were dead. Only Lord Krsna, the Panḍavas, and a few others survived the massacre. The Kauravas (Duryodhana and his brothers) were devastated. In a desperate gesture of revenge, Asvatthama, one of the surviving Kauravas, mercilessly murdered the five sons of Draupadi while they were sleeping. Queen Kunti thus suffered a final blow-the loss of her grandchildren.

Arrested and dragged to the Panḍavas' camp like a bound animal, Asvatthama was let free only by the astounding compassion of Draupadi, the slaughtered boys' mother and Kunti's daughter-in-law, who pleaded for his life. But the shameless Asvatthama made one more attempt to kill the last heir of the Panḍavas, their unborn grandson in the womb of Uttara, by hurling the supreme brahmastra weapon. When she saw the missile flying straight at her, Uttara immediately ran to the shelter of Lord Krsna, who was just about to depart for Dvaraka, His majestic capital city. Krsna protected the Panḍavas and their mother Kunti from imminent death by stopping the weapon's uncontrollable heat and radiation with His own Sudarsana disc.

Having delivered the Panḍavas from this last    (More...)