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.