Kunti and Pandu

Pandu, a Kuru prince, secures two powerful marriages—to Kunti and Madri—and then turns his ambition outward. He launches a military campaign across the eastern kingdoms, crushing proud kings, seizing their wealth, and forcing them to acknowledge Kuru supremacy. He returns to a hero's welcome, his chariots groaning with tribute, having revived the faded glory of his lineage.

Pandu, having regained control over his senses, leaves his palace and royal life behind. He takes his two wives, Kunti and Madri, to live permanently in the wilderness, hunting and roaming the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Under Dhritarashtra's command, the forest-dwellers provide for them, and Pandu lives among them like a god.

Having given away his jewels and sent his servants home, Pandu begins his new life. With Kunti and Madri, he travels through sacred and remote mountains, living on roots and fruit under the protection of siddhas and rishis, until he finds a place to stop.

After the death of the sage-disguised deer, King Pandu is shattered by grief and self-loathing. He declares he will renounce everything — his kingdom, his home, even his sense of good and evil — to live as a wandering ascetic, free as the wind.

Haunted by the ascetics' prophecy and his own curse of impotence, Pandu confronts the religious crisis of his childlessness. He turns to his wife Kunti, invoking ancient scripture to argue for niyoga — the sanctioned practice of obtaining offspring through another man — and instructs her to bear sons by a Brahmana superior to him.

Pandu, cursed to die if he unites with a woman, asks Kunti to bear sons through niyoga — the ancient practice of appointing another man. Kunti’s response is immediate and absolute: she will not go to any other man, not even in her thoughts.

Pandu, cursed and desperate for an heir, begs his wife Kunti to conceive sons through Brahmanas. Kunti reveals a secret from her girlhood: the sage Durvasa, pleased with her service, gave her a mantra to summon any god to father a child. She offers to use it immediately, asking Pandu which god to call.

Cursed and unable to father children, King Pandu makes a desperate, formal appeal to his wife Kunti. He cites ancient precedents, the law of Shvetaketu, and the story of his own birth to argue that her wifely duty is to bear sons through appointed Brahmanas. He concludes by joining his hands above his head in supplication.

After Bhima's birth, Pandu desires a supreme son, the best in all worlds. He performs severe austerities for a year to please Indra, king of the gods. When Indra grants the boon, Kunti summons him, and Arjuna is born amid celestial celebrations and a prophecy of his future glory.

With Gandhari pregnant for a year, Pandu desires a son and instructs Kunti to use the boon given by Durvasa. She summons Dharma, the god of righteousness, and gives birth to Yudhishthira. Then, wanting a son of strength, she summons Vayu, the wind god, and gives birth to Bhima—whose first act is to shatter a mountain.

After Arjuna's glorious birth, Pandu, still greedy for more sons, summons Kunti yet again. Kunti refuses him, citing the law of dharma that a fourth son renders a woman promiscuous, and questions why her wise husband is speaking as if he has lost his reason.

Madri, the second wife, is tormented by her childlessness while her co-wife Kunti has three sons. In private, she confesses her sorrow to Pandu and asks him to persuade Kunti to share the secret that summons the gods, so that she too might have a child.

With Pandu dead by the curse, Madri calls Kunti to the scene. She explains she could not resist him and that his death was his destiny. Then she persuades Kunti to let her perform sati, arguing she cannot raise all the children equally and entrusting her sons to Kunti's care.

With Pandu and Madri dead in the forest, Dhritarashtra orders a royal funeral from the capital. Vidura and Bhishma lead a vast, sorrowful procession to the Ganga, where the king and his wife are cremated with full honors, leaving their five young sons to begin twelve days of public mourning.