Draupadi's Grief
Women in the Mahabharata War
Rama Devagupta©

Where women are honored,
there the gods are pleased.
Manu Smriti, III.56

There where women are not worshipped, all acts become fruitless.
If the women of a family,
in consequence of the treatment they receive, grieve and shed tears,
that family soon becomes extinct.
Those houses that are cursed by women meet with destruction and ruin.
Mahabharata,
Anushasana Parva,
Section XLVI

WAR. External war, internal war, internecine war. War between kings and the chosen bridegroom to wed a beautiful princess named Draupadi, and war between the Pandava and Kaurava cousins for a kingdom known as Indraprastha. War between dharma (righteousness) and adharma (unrighteousness) at the battlefield of Kurukshetra, and war between a conflicted mind and longing soul that leads to the transmission of the Bhagavad Gita. Indeed, war is that single word which summarizes the collection of narratives in the ancient Indian epic of Mahabharata, that larger-than-life classic, which consists of over 100,000 Sanskrit verses, and is considered by many to be the fifth Veda.

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