TEXT 48
tato yudhisthiro gatva
saha-krsno gajahvayam
pitaram santvayam asa
gandharim ca tapasvinim
SYNONYMS
tatahthereafter; yudhisthirahMaharaja Yudhisthira; gatvagoing there; sahawith; krsnahthe Lord; gajahvayamin the capital named Gajahvaya Hastinapura; pitaramunto his uncle (Dhrtarastra); santvayam asaconsoled; gandharimthe wife of Dhrtarastra; caand; tapasviniman ascetic lady.
TRANSLATION
Thereafter, Maharaja Yudhisthira at once went to his capital, Hastinapura, accompanied by Lord Sri Krsna, and there he consoled his uncle and aunt Gandhari, who was an ascetic.
PURPORT
Dhrtarastra and Gandhari, the father and the mother of Duryodhana and his brothers, were the elder uncle and aunt of Maharaja Yudhisthira. After the Battle of Kuruksetra, the celebrated couple, having lost all their sons and grandsons, were under the care of Maharaja Yudhisthira. They were passing their days in great agony over such a heavy loss of life and were practically living the life of ascetics. The death news of Bhismadeva, uncle of Dhrtarastra, was another great shock for the King and the Queen, and therefore they required solace from Maharaja Yudhisthira. Maharaja Yudhisthira was conscious of his duty, and he at once hurried to the spot with Lord Krsna and satisfied the bereaved Dhrtarastra with kind words, from both himself and the Lord also.
Gandhari was a powerful ascetic, although she was living the life of a faithful wife and a kind mother. It is said that Gandhari also voluntarily closed her eyes because of the blindness of her husband. A wife's duty is to follow the husband cent percent. And Gandhari was so true to her husband that she followed him even in his perpetual blindness. Therefore in her actions she was a great ascetic. Besides that, the shock she suffered because of the wholesale killing of her one hundred sons and her grandsons also was certainly too much for a woman. But she suffered all this just like an ascetic. Gandhari, although a woman, is no less than Bhismadeva in character. They are both remarkable personalities in the Mahabharata.
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