Draupadi: Epitome of Feminity and Feminism

"Complexion that shone as the rain-bearing sky,
The cascading tresses and those lotus-like eyes,
The ripe-red lips that caused every fruit’s bow,
The bow-shaped lashes on a winsome brow,
The neck that hath wrested the grace of a conch,
Her youthful laughter, what music did it launch,
The great archer arches to Her rapturous smile,
Her blue-lotus fragrance that rules over miles,
The flaw-less skin about her creeper like frame,
Was she the Creator, or Creator’s Divine game?
Such was Krishnaa the Princess of Panchal!"

Draupadi was a heroic princess of the Hindu epic of Mahabharata. One who was firm and a woman with an unbending will. The Proud and angry heroine of the epic Mahabharata, Draupadi has remained an enigmatic woman of substance.

Draupadi was the daughter of Drupad and the wife and queen of the five great Pandavas, renowned alike for her loveliness and her granite will.This fiery princess bent on vengeance could be compassionate and generous, too.

Her personality was one of lightning and thunder. Her story is a saga of suffering and disgrace but she took everything in her stride and vanquished each one of the perpetrators of her humiliation and agony.

She has a mind of her very own. There are few women in Hindu mythology who were aggressive and who spoke their mind in a world of men. Draupadi was one of them. She is considered by many as the first feminist of Indian mythology. 

At the time of her birth, a celestial voice had proclaimed: "This unparalleled beauty has taken birth to uproot the Kauravas and establish the rule of religion". 

A full-grown daughter emerged from fire and dazzle blinded the eye. She was Draupadi. When Draupadi emerged from the fire there was an oracle that she would side with God against the evil Kauravas.

Draupadi's unparalleled beauty and intelligence becomes the cause of her misery. Draupadi had a marvelous blend of intensity that suits kshatriyas and forgiveness that fits devotees. She was very intelligent and knowledgeable. 

"She had a brilliant mind, was utterly "one-in-herself" and did not hesitate in reprimanding the Kuru elders for countenancing wickedness. She also boldly reprimanded the elders present in the court and appealed to them to do justice. She cried out to her silent husbands. But nobody came for help. Finding no response, with quicksilver presence of mind she seizes upon a social ritual to wrest some moments of respite from pillaging hands. Her speech drips with sarcasm. The elders whom she ceremoniously salutes, deliberately using the word "duty", have remained silent in the face of Vidura's exhortation to do their duty and protect the royal daughter-in-law."

Thus, despite being humiliated, Draupadi won morally. Nobody could refute her logic. She said "where righteousness and justice do not exist, it ceases to be a court; it is a gang of robbers".

Draupadi succeeded in winning back freedom for her enslaved husbands. Karna paid her a remarkable tribute, saying that none of the world's renowned beautiful women have accomplished such a feat: like a boat she has rescued her husbands who were drowning in a sea of sorrows. With striking dignity she refuses to take the third boon Dhritharashtra offered, because with her husbands free and in possession of their weapons, she did not need a boon from anyone. 

No twenty first century feminist can surpass her in being in charge of herself.

Draupadi was fully conscious of her beauty and its power. She was a courageous queen with a dynamic personality. Even Duryodhan grudgingly admitted to her greatness. She was in a way, the revolving kingpin of the Mahabharata war.

Born unwanted, thrust abruptly into a polyandrous marriage, she seems to have had a profound awareness of being an instrument in bringing about the extinction of an effete epoch so that a new age could take birth. And being so aware, Draupadi offered her entire being as a flaming sacrifice in that holocaust of which Krishna was the presiding deity. Draupadi was used by everybody. 

Draupadi has five husbands - but she has none -

She had five sons - and was never a mother …

The Pandavas have given Draupadi … 

No joy, no sense of victory 

No honour as wife

No respect as mother -

Only the status of a Queen …

But they all have gone

And I'm left with a lifeless jewel

And an empty crown …

My baffled motherhood

Wrings its hands and strives to weep".

A long poem "Kurukshetra", written by Amreeta Syam, conveys this angst of Panchali (Draupadi), born unasked for by her father, bereft of brothers and sons and her beloved sakha (friend) Krishna.

If the Mahabharata is an intricately woven saga of hatred and love, bloodshed and noble thoughts, courage and cowardice, beauty and gentleness, victory and defeat, then Draupadi is its shining jewel, casting the shadow of her towering personality over the epic poem and the all-destroying war it describes.